<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>H.M., M.D. by SophiaHawkins</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28863261">H.M., M.D.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophiaHawkins/pseuds/SophiaHawkins'>SophiaHawkins</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The A-Team (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AU, Gen, Mystery, OC, Some dark themes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 05:47:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>21,748</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28863261</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophiaHawkins/pseuds/SophiaHawkins</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>During a routine trip to bust him out of the V.A., Face found out Murdock was scheduled to have a lobotomy. Confirming that Murdock's files just got crossed with another patient's was the easy part; but when he finds out the other patient is also named Murdock, then things start to get complicated.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Part of the inspiration for this story was how the U.K. released novelizations of "The A-Team" had Murdock's name as being Mad Dog instead of Howling Mad. I wondered what would happen if there were in fact two different Murdocks and they met, and the idea grew from there. I wrote this story many years ago, evidenced by the fact that re-reading them now, I wouldn't have the energy to try something of this magnitude again. Hope you enjoy, please read and review!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p></p><div>
  <p>H.M., M.D.</p>
  <p>Face whistled to himself as he looked at his reflection in the mirror and made sure every hair was in place and that everything was straightened out perfectly on his doctor's uniform. He doubted that the staff at the V.A. really paid much attention to those little details, still it wouldn't hurt, especially if he managed to get a date with one of the young nurses working there. Last minute check test, make sure he had everything: mask, gloves, stethoscope, little black bag, and some forged documents necessary to get Murdock released to his care, check.</p>
  <p>There was no mission this time, they weren't in a race to get Murdock out of the hospital ASAP, it was just decided by Hannibal, of course, that it was time they got Murdock out on leave for the weekend so the four of them could get together and have some fun. B.A. would insist they'd have a better time without Murdock, of course, but Face knew the sergeant better than that. The truth was no matter how annoying Murdock could be, and Face knew only too well from bunking with him over the years how annoying he could get, he always livened things up for all of them. He didn't know what Murdock's new obsession or persona or psychosis would be, but he was sure it would be one they'd never seen before; Murdock rarely enjoyed repeating himself for some reason.</p>
  <p>On a bright side, Face noted, they wouldn't have to be cooped up with Murdock inside for the whole weekend; the sun was out, the sky was clear, if things got too stuffy around Murdock when he went off on one of his latest obsessions, either they could step outside for some air, or B.A. could pick Murdock up and toss him into the outside pool at the new house Face had managed to scam for them. Of course there was never any truly <em>ideal</em> time to get Murdock, but when it rained was among the worst, especially if it stormed because Murdock wasn't above trying to make them all paranoid about escaped killers or ghosts in the closet or even haunted toasters or something like that. If only he could find a way to put that television set in Murdock's room out of commission, he was watching too many old haunted house movies.</p>
  <p>He got in his car and drove up to the V.A. and whistled to himself as he walked up to the building's entrance. Mentally he rehearsed one more time what he was going to say, he'd gone through so many routines getting Murdock out over the years that he was starting to watch to make sure he didn't repeat himself.</p>
  <p>Coming to an abrupt stop at the front desk, he dropped his black bag as if it was a workman's toolbox and said to the registration nurse, "Good morning, I'm Dr. Lawrence Wilcox and I'm here to see a patient, one Captain H.M. Murdock."</p>
  <p>The young woman looked at him curiously and asked, "What do you wish to see Mr. Murdock about?"</p>
  <p>"He is one of a handful of patients who have been selected for a new study approved by the government. We are attempting to study the brain of war torn Veterans while they are still alive instead of waiting for them to be willed to science. A dead brain is no good in attempting to find cures for live patients, and it's to my understanding that Captain Murdock is a most peculiar case all his own, possibly a whole case study all his own."</p>
  <p>"I'll have to clear this with another nurse, just one moment," the woman said as she got up from her desk and went to find one of the older nurses.</p>
  <p>Face hummed to himself and drummed his fingers on the desk top as he waited, a moment later a big fat bossy woman he had personally come to refer to affectionately as 'Nurse Dragon' whenever she wasn't around, came up to see what was going on. He spun his yarn again and this time made sure to really sell it since everything had to be cleared by this woman. He couldn't count his blessings enough that this woman, who had seen him off and on for so many years, hadn't yet put the pieces together as to the running joke in this hospital.</p>
  <p>"Mr. Murdock is in room 104 in the psychiatric wing, I'll show you the way," she said to him.</p>
  <p>"That will be fine, nurse," Face said, "Incidentally, it is of a large interest between my colleagues and myself…in this hospital do you refer to all patients as Mr.?"</p>
  <p>"Yes, we don't have any women here," the nurse told him.</p>
  <p>"So noted," Face rolled his eyes, "But what I was referring to is why are these men addressed by gender formality titles, and not rank? Murdock <em>was</em> a Captain in the services."</p>
  <p>"<em>Was</em> is correct, Doctor," the nurse said, "Not anymore, none of these men are the soldiers they were."</p>
  <p>"Their treatment received by their families, their government and their whole country isn't bad enough, now they must be stripped of what little dignity they have left by those overseeing their care in this hospital?" Face asked, enjoying every moment of it while he got to watch the woman squirm in trying to answer that one, "It's no wonder they have so much trouble adapting to life back from the battlefield, they go over to serve their country, and come back to be treated like a chewed up piece of bubble gum on the bottom of your shoe."</p>
  <p>"We all have our orders to follow in this life, Doctor," the nurse told him, "Those are <em>our</em> orders on how to treat the patients."</p>
  <p>"It is to my understanding that Captain Murdock is one of your more unique patients, is that correct?" Face asked as they neared room 104.</p>
  <p>"That's the understatement of the year," the nurse snorted.</p>
  <p>Face pulled the mask up and said, "You'll have to excuse me, some of the hospitals we've been picking up the men for the test studies from have been having <em>horrible</em> epidemics, as a physician I can't see taking anymore chances than we already do in our everyday lives."</p>
  <p>Their conversation was cut off by a sudden commotion coming from Murdock's room. Face couldn't make out what it was but it sounded like one of those old cartoons where several people spin around in a cyclone and every few seconds pull out a chainsaw or a sledgehammer or dynamite as a new accompanying noise joined the mixture. He and the nurse ran and through the window in the door he could see Murdock standing on his dresser hovering over two orderlies and a nurse who were trying to restrain him. He screamed and kicked at them and knocked over anything within his reach and jumped out of the way again. Face threw the door open and stormed in and demanded to know, "What in the <em>world</em> is going on in here?"</p>
  <p>Though his mask was drawn up on his face, there was no mistaking him, and Murdock momentarily forgot the cover and jumped on Face and begged him, "Don't let them take me! I didn't do anything!"</p>
  <p>Face managed to pry Murdock's hands off of him and repeated, "What is going on around here?"</p>
  <p>Everybody tried talking at once so Face had to tell them all to shut up, and ordered them to explain one at a time. The other nurse explained that Mr. Murdock was being examined to make sure he was in good condition for his procedure tomorrow. Face felt his eyebrows knit together and he asked, "What procedure?"</p>
  <p>"Mr. Murdock has been scheduled to have a lobotomy tomorrow," the younger nurse told him.</p>
  <p>"A <em>what</em>?!" Face felt his blood beginning to boil and he was ready to shoot through the roof.</p>
  <p>"Tell them I don't need it," Murdock said as he got behind Face and used him for a shield, "Tell them I didn't do anything, doc, tell them!"</p>
  <p>"Nurse!" Face said in a tone that would make him perfect as a commanding officer, "Could I see Captain Murdock's form?"</p>
  <p>"Yes, Doctor."</p>
  <p>The dragon nurse followed her out to make sure that there were no mix-ups, leaving the four men in the room. Face turned to the two orderlies in the room and told them, "Get out!" Since he was the one in the white coat, nobody was going to question his word for it, and the two men quickly left the room.</p>
  <p>"Don't let them do it, Face," Murdock murmured into his ear, "Don't let them do it to me, please."</p>
  <p>"Murdock, calm down," Face said quietly, assuredly, "I'm going to get to the bottom of this. Did they say anything?"</p>
  <p>"They just came in and told me I was scheduled for surgery tomorrow," Murdock told him, "They wouldn't say why, but they don't go around taking out half your brain just for the hell of it. At least I hope they don't...you don't think they do, do you, Facey?"</p>
  <p>Face sucked in a deep breath and stood tall when the two nurses returned and handed him the paperwork for the surgery. Face scrutinized over every word on the form, and pushed Murdock back when he sensed the pilot reading over his shoulder, and he felt his eyes widen when he spotted the smoking gun.</p>
  <p>"Nurse," he said in his authoritative tone, "This form is for an M.D. Murdock, <em>not</em> H.M. Murdock."</p>
  <p>"What?" the dragon nurse asked and took it back from him and read it over for herself, "Oh for heaven's sake…"</p>
  <p>"You have more than one patient named Murdock in this hospital?" Face asked.</p>
  <p>"Yeah," she answered, "M.D. Murdock is a new patient, just got transferred here…I'm terribly sorry about this, Mr. Murdock."</p>
  <p>"Oh that's alright," he replied as he came out from behind Face, "Just don't let it happen again. Don't be a stranger now, y'hear?"</p>
  <p>"Doctor," the dragon lady said as she looked over the form in her hand and tried to figure out which to take care of first, "I'm going to get the paperwork taken care of for Mr. Murdock's release, and then we'll tend to our new patient, I'm terribly sorry about the mix-up."</p>
  <p>"Well you should be," Face told her, "For crying out loud this is supposed to be a professionally run hospital, are you trying to give the public the impression that it's the <em>patients</em> running this place into a madhouse instead?"</p>
  <p>He hollered down the hall a little more even once the nurse had left, and then when they were alone, he turned to Murdock and said, "That was weird."</p>
  <p>Murdock let out a shaky exhale of relief and said, "Thanks, Faceman, that was a close call."</p>
  <p>"Murdock," Face said as he peeled off his mask, "Who's M.D. Murdock?"</p>
  <p>The pilot shrugged and said, "I don't know, I didn't know there was another me in this hospital."</p>
  <p>"Murdock," Face thought of something, "If <em>he's</em> due for a lobotomy, doesn't that mean he's <em>also</em> a mental patient here?"</p>
  <p>"Well it's not written in stone but that <em>is</em> the general idea," Murdock told him.</p>
  <p>"Alright, tell me something else, is there anyway you can find out who this guy is before we leave?" Face asked.</p>
  <p>"Sure, just give me a minute and hang close by," he answered.</p>
  <p>"Alright," Face said helplessly, what else could go wrong?</p>
  <p>Murdock asked around with some of the neighboring patients and when he got an answer, he led Face down the corridor to the patients' recreation room where ideally they could watch TV and play cards and write letters to their families on the outside, but more realistically they ate the cards and tried wearing the TV antenna and just sat around babbling to themselves.</p>
  <p>"How're we going to know which one he is?" Face asked.</p>
  <p>Murdock pointed to someone in the middle of the room and said, "There he is, I don't know him."</p>
  <p>They went over to the man who looked about 10 years younger than Murdock, had a head full of short dark hair, was dressed in blue jeans and a dirty white T-shirt and whose head kept drooping for a few seconds before he jerked awake again, though his eyes didn't open all the way or even halfway anymore.</p>
  <p>"M.D. Murdock?" Face asked.</p>
  <p>The young man didn't answer to his name, didn't acknowledge hearing or seeing anybody standing right in front of him, he only rolled his neck from one side to the next and said in a shaky voice, "Can't sleep, they'll kill me…can't sleep, they'll kill me."</p>
  <p>"No wonder this guy's having a lobotomy tomorrow," Face commented.</p>
  <p>Murdock knelt down to look up at the man and he looked back to Face and told him, "Facey, something's wrong here."</p>
  <p>"What is it?" Face asked.</p>
  <p>"Something's wrong with this guy alright, but it's not psychotics, or psychoses, or medication, or his own delusions…now I know, I've seen these guys every day, I know what those all look like, this ain't that, this is plain fear. I don't think this guy belongs here."</p>
  <p>"Well if he doesn't belong here," Face said to the pilot, "Why <em>is</em> he here?"</p>
  <p>The gears were already turning in his head because he knew they didn't have much time, and he was right. A few seconds later he heard Mrs. Dragon's voice booming off the walls as she found them and demanded to know what they were doing there.</p>
  <p>Face pulled his mask up on his face again and turned around to face the nurse and asked her, "Is this M.D. Murdock?"</p>
  <p>"Yes that's him," she answered, "Why?"</p>
  <p>"Hold off on that surgery," Face told her, "I need to know how long this man has been a patient in this hospital."</p>
  <p>"Only for the last couple of weeks."</p>
  <p>"Well put him in a private room and keep him there," Face instructed her, "It's too soon to tell but I think some of my colleagues will be paying this hospital a visit to see this man. Don't say a word of it to anybody, it's a matter of National Security."</p>
  <p>"I don't understand," the nurse said.</p>
  <p>Face kept to himself the comment that there was a statement she ought to have tattooed on her forehead. Instead he told her that if the information fell into the wrong hands, millions of people's lives could be at stake. After that it didn't take much to shut her up and get Murdock out of there.</p>
  <hr/>
  <p>Once Face got Murdock out of the V.A., they went back to the house he was using for the time being; Hannibal and B.A. were already there waiting for them. As soon as they got in the house, they bombarded Hannibal with the details of what happened when Face went to the hospital to retrieve Murdock. Both the colonel and the sergeant looked as confused by this story as Face knew he and Murdock both felt.</p>
  <p>"A lobotomy?" Hannibal repeated in disbelief, "They still do those?"</p>
  <p>"Apparently," Face answered, "I thought they quit doing them 10 years ago, but I guess we were wrong."</p>
  <p>"Colonel," Murdock said, speaking up for the first time since they'd gotten in the house, "I want to hire the A-Team to get M.D. Murdock out of the hospital. Now, I've been there long enough to know when something's right and this ain't right, something's up and I think we need to find out what it is and we have to do it fast before they take out half this guy's brain tomorrow."</p>
  <p>Hannibal considered it for a moment before responding, "I'm inclined to agree with you, Captain."</p>
  <p>"So exactly what <em>are</em> we going to do, Hannibal?" Face asked.</p>
  <p>Hannibal scratched his head and asked them, "Do you know anything about this guy?"</p>
  <p>"Yeah, a little," Face answered snappily, "Like for one thing, Murdock's right and this guy doesn't belong in the V.A. Once we left I made a few phone calls and did some checking, there is no record of <em>any</em> M.D. Murdock serving in <em>any</em> branch of the military, so how does he qualify for Veterans Administrative care?"</p>
  <p>"How indeed?" Hannibal agreed, he turned to the sergeant and asked, "What do you think, B.A.?"</p>
  <p>"Sounds like something's wrong alright, but what are <em>we</em> going to do with another Murdock? What if this one's as bad as the crazy fool we' already stuck with?"</p>
  <p>Hannibal looked back to the pilot and said, "That's a good point, what're the chances that this guy could be a relative of yours?"</p>
  <p>Murdock shrugged and said, "It beats me, Hannibal, but if it is I'd be honored to have him in my company."</p>
  <p>"Great, but <em>how</em> are we going to get him out of there?" Face asked, "They're operating on him first thing in the morning."</p>
  <p>Hannibal chuckled as he took out a new cigar and lit it, "Fear not, Face, as usual, I've got a plan."</p>
  <p>"Alright," Face waited a few seconds and asked him, "How about now? Is <em>now</em> a good time to be afraid?"</p>
  <p>Murdock turned his attention from the conversation in the living room, to the skyward view right outside the sliding glass doors. The sun was gone and the blue of the sky was now covered by a building cluster of gray clouds.</p>
  <p>"I sense a storm coming," he commented, speaking in more than just the meteorological sense.</p>
  <hr/>
  <p>Hannibal's plans were always a little farfetched when looked at at face value; they always required the most absurd props and equipment, but this one, for all the sense that it actually made, <em>still</em> struck Face as being one of the oddest ones yet. The list of things Hannibal needed to pull off this plan involved another doctor's coat, a change of clothes, a false ID badge, a movie makeup kit, a dark wig and matching fake mustache to go nicely with his new skin tone, as well as a suiting change of clothes for B.A. and an ambulance ready to go. He'd already explained his plan to Face twice, and while it sounded as logical as any of Hannibal's plans could, and would coincide nicely with the window of opportunity he had left open upon exiting the V.A. with Murdock, he still had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach that something wasn't going to go right.</p>
  <p>Of course he would've felt better going back to the hospital with Hannibal himself but he knew that wasn't a possibility; now, he had to stay home with Murdock while Hannibal and B.A. went to investigate at the hospital. As he watched them drive off, he happened to look up and noticed that the sky was gradually getting darker; and if he listened closely enough, he would almost swear he could hear thunder in the distance.</p>
  <p>"Bad weather on the way, Faceman," Murdock said as he walked outside to join the lieutenant.</p>
  <p>"Think it's a sign?" Face asked.</p>
  <p>"Don't know."</p>
  <p>Face looked at Murdock and asked him, "Do you really think this guy could be a relative of yours?"</p>
  <p>"I wouldn't give much for those chances, but I'm hoping," Murdock replied, "It would be nice to have somebody in the family around again…" he stopped, and thought about something, and started laughing.</p>
  <p>"What's so funny?" Face asked.</p>
  <p>"M.D. Murdock," he said, "Maybe it's backwards and he's really a doctor."</p>
  <p>"Why would a doctor be a patient?" Face asked him.</p>
  <p>"Oh you'd be surprised how many of the doctors at the V.A. come up hospitalized all the time," Murdock told him, "They're always having to be sedated or put on bed rest, or something."</p>
  <p>Face thought about it and said, "I guess dealing with crazy people all day would do that to you."</p>
  <p>"You have no idea," Murdock said as he took his cap off and scratched the top of his head, "You'd be surprised how many doctors I've been to see who shot themselves either right after their first session or right before the second session with me."</p>
  <p>Face tried to be reassuring as he said, "I'm sure that's just a coincidence, Murdock."</p>
  <p>"So how long do you think they'll be gone?" Murdock asked.</p>
  <p>"With Hannibal's plan at work?" Face asked as he looked skyward again, "Who knows?"</p>
  <p>Murdock looked at him and asked, "What do you want to do in the meantime till they get back?"</p>
  <p>Face checked his wristwatch and asked, "How about we get lunch?"</p>
  <p>"Alright," Murdock followed him back to the house, and then asked, "Oh, did you remember to get those pickled pigs feet I told you about for my new recipe?"</p>
  <p>"Uh…the market was fresh out," Face told him.</p>
  <p>"Oh drat," Murdock snapped his fingers, "I suppose it'll be back to green olive and jelly sandwiches then."</p>
  <p>Face got a pained look on his face and said to the pilot, "None for me, thanks."</p>
  <p>"But you know something I wonder, Face?" Murdock asked as he walked up the steps, "Since this other Murdock isn't a Veteran, what's he doing in a Veterans hospital? Now that's the $500,000 question."</p>
  <p>"That's the million dollar question, Murdock," Face told him.</p>
  <p>"I know," Murdock said as he held the door open for Face, "But I'm counting it <em>after</em> the taxes."</p>
  <p>Face cocked his head to the side and said, "Good point."</p>
</div>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div>
  <p>"I don't like this, Hannibal," B.A. said as he drove them to the hospital in an ambulance that Face had managed to scam for them.</p>
  <p>"Don't like what, B.A.?" Hannibal asked as he straightened out his wig and made sure his mustache was straight.</p>
  <p>"Why did <em>I</em> have to be the one coming out here with you?"</p>
  <p>"Because they already saw Face, they'd know something was up if he came back," Hannibal answered, "I told you that already."</p>
  <p>"I know, but I ain't no actor," B.A. told him, "You and Faceman are good at conning people, you know what to say to them."</p>
  <p>"Don't worry," Hannibal replied, "If all goes according to plan, you shouldn't have to do more than just standing around and being your usual charming self."</p>
  <p>B.A. turned his head slowly to glare at Hannibal and growled at him.</p>
  <p>"That's the look," Hannibal said with a smirk as he bit down on his cigar.</p>
  <p>"So what'chu think's going on?" B.A. asked.</p>
  <p>"That we won't know until we get there," Hannibal said, "Now you just man the gurney and let me do all the talking."</p>
  <p>"What do you think I was planning on doing?" B.A. responded.</p>
  <p>Hannibal stuck his head out the passenger window and looked up at the dark sky. Those clouds that had moved in earlier in the morning looked like they were settled in place now, and they spanned out as far as the eye could see. He also noticed how some of them had a greenish tint to them and appeared to be lumpy like a bunch of marshmallows. Hail clouds, he noted. He also noticed the chill in the air now as the wind blew hard, and he told B.A., "Storm's coming."</p>
  <p>"That's what Murdock said back at the house," B.A. glared over at him again and asked, "You two reading each other's minds now?"</p>
  <p>"I don't have to, I can feel it," Hannibal told him as he pulled his head back in through the window, "Let's see if we can get in and get out with Mr. Murdock before the storm hits. I've got a feeling it's going to be a bad one."</p>
  <p>B.A. slowly nodded and kept his eyes on the road ahead. As they neared the V.A., he told Hannibal, "I don't like this. Something about this place…"</p>
  <p>"Oh come now, B.A., you've been out here before," Hannibal told him, "Even though it usually <em>is</em> Face making the trip to bust Murdock out."</p>
  <p>B.A. shook his head, "Ain't so bad when it's daylight and the sun's out, then the place looks normal, for a crazy hospital, but like this…don't like it, Hannibal, don't like it one bit."</p>
  <p>Hannibal looked up ahead and agreed, "Yeah I know what you mean…kind of like entering a cemetery." He couldn't explain what it was, but there was something about the place that under the right circumstances, when the atmosphere was just right, it set a bad feeling in his bones to come out here. He knew that other mental hospitals had cemeteries in the back to bury their patients that nobody claimed, but as far as he knew, everybody who was at the V.A. had somebody to collect upon expiration. He'd been in the back yard of the hospital and knew, or at least <em>thought</em> since he never saw any tombstones, that nobody was buried there, not <em>this</em> decade anyway. Still he wondered, and he also wondered if Murdock ever had the same thoughts; his were probably worse because he actually lived there, and would have a better idea what actually happened to the patients who left the hospital carried out. He pushed the thought from his mind for the time being, and he looked over at the sergeant and joked, "Guess it's a good thing we didn't bring Murdock with us, he'd probably start rambling on about zombies coming out of the ground and eating us."</p>
  <p>"Don't start, Hannibal," B.A. warned him.</p>
  <p>Hannibal chuckled lightly as he clamped down on his cigar again.</p>
  <hr/>
  <p>Hannibal pushed through the front doors of the hospital and entered with an air of authority about him as he stood tall and intimidating to the staff who saw him; like Rambo just out of medical school. He was dressed in a doctor's coat with a mask hanging around his neck and short surgical gloves on his hands, his bushy wig was almost pitch dark, as was his mustache, his skin had been touched up to a shade tanner than he was, but instead of looking like he'd been bronzing himself in the sun, he looked like a tumbleweed. Behind him, B.A. stepped heavily, his size 14 clod hoppers practically leaving dents in the floor, he was dressed in an extra large set of green scrubs including a cap covering his Mohawk, and a white mask pulled up over his nose and mouth.</p>
  <p>Hannibal was able to recognize the dragon nurse from Face's description and he strode over to her and just as soon as she was able to ask who he was and what he wanted, he stared her down and demanded to know, "Where is he? <em>Where</em> is M.D. Murdock?"</p>
  <p>"Who are you?" the nurse repeated.</p>
  <p>"My name is Doctor Streiner, I'm here on official government business, I demand to know where M.D. Murdock is."</p>
  <p>"Whatever for?" she asked.</p>
  <p>Hannibal didn't wait for her to show him the way and instead stomped off towards the direction of the psychiatric wing, with B.A. following behind him and the nurse running alongside him.</p>
  <p>"Our colleague Dr. Wilcox got in touch with us this morning, he <em>was</em> here this morning wasn't he? He told you to keep Mr. Murdock in a private room until further notice?"</p>
  <p>"Yes he did, but I still don't understand what this is all about," she told him.</p>
  <p>"This goes beyond National Security, lady," Hannibal told her, "We are talking about an epidemic that will make the Spanish Flu of '18 look like a head cold."</p>
  <p>"What!?" she asked.</p>
  <p>Hannibal stopped in the middle of the otherwise empty hallway and quietly explained to the woman, "If word of this leaks out to anybody, if the government finds out about this error, then within a week there will be no record of <em>any</em> of us ever having existed, do you understand? Now Mr. Murdock was exposed to a new strain of disease before he was transferred here, a <em>manmade</em> strain that is being developed to up our nation's idea of biological germ warfare when it comes time for our country to enter war with the foreign nations again. When it is perfected, one infected person will be able to spread it to and effectively kill off 500,000 people within a week's time." He watched the shocked look on the woman's face and understood perfectly the pleasure Face got out of running these people through this wringer every few weeks, "Now, we don't know yet that Mr. Murdock has been infected, if he <em>has</em> then we have to study his vitals and find a way to cure it before anybody in Uncle Sam's quarters finds out about this mishap. If he has not, then once we finish running our tests we will gladly return him to you, but we <em>must</em> act fast, so where is he?"</p>
  <p>"Right down here, Doctor," the nurse said as she ran on ahead of him.</p>
  <p>"What condition is he currently in?" Hannibal asked.</p>
  <p>The nurse opened the door and he stepped in and saw the young man laying on the cot bed, all but unconscious but still through some unspoken will he was still rambling on, though less coherently now.</p>
  <p>"Is this man in shock?" Hannibal asked as he pulled the patient up into a sitting position and lifted his eyelids.</p>
  <p>"No, Doctor, he's sedated," the nurse answered.</p>
  <p>"SEDATED!?" Hannibal exploded as he turned back towards her, "Good Lord you <em>sedated</em> this man?"</p>
  <p>"Yes!" she answered sharply, "He hadn't slept in a week!"</p>
  <p>"Well of <em>course</em> he hadn't!" Hannibal told her, "This new disease that our patriots down in Washington have conjured up attacks the body during its rest cycle, the only way to survive and fight it off <em>is</em> to stay awake." He pushed one eyelid up again and said directly into the man's ear, "Mr. Murdock, can you hear me? My name is Doctor Streiner, my assistant and I are going to relocate you to our laboratory, if you can hear me, make some signal that you understand."</p>
  <p>B.A. backed out of the room and rushed back in pushing a gurney. Hannibal continued to yell into the man's ear as he pulled him up and got him to his feet long enough to move him over to the gurney where he and B.A. got him on and strapped down and then wheeled him out of the room, down the hall, out to the entrance lobby, and out the automatic doors to the ambulance in the parking lot.</p>
  <p>"Mr. Murdock, can you hear me?" he repeated as they got him in the ambulance. Still no response, though he wasn't totally unconscious yet. Hannibal got in the back with him and closed the door, B.A. went around to the front, started it up and got them out of there.</p>
  <p>"Have to admit, Hannibal, that was one of your <em>craziest</em> plans yet," B.A. told him.</p>
  <p>"What's the matter?" Hannibal asked as he peeled off his disguise, "You don't think the government could come up with a disease like that?" He forced one of the man's eyelids open again and said to him, "Mr. Murdock, if you can hear me, you're out of danger now."</p>
  <p>The young man let out an exhausted groan and collapsed against the gurney, <em>now</em> he was unconscious.</p>
  <p>"Got any ideas about it, Hannibal?" B.A. asked.</p>
  <p>"Not yet," Hannibal shook his head, "Hopefully when our friend wakes up he'll be able to answer some of our questions, but if what they said is right and he <em>hasn't</em> slept in a week…"</p>
  <p>"Why would he do that, Hannibal?" B.A. asked.</p>
  <p>Hannibal thought back and said, "Face said he kept muttering something about 'they' were going to kill him, but who's 'they'?"</p>
  <p>A disturbing thought came to B.A.'s mind and he said, "Maybe the lobotomy was just a cover…if he suddenly turned up dead couldn't they just say something went wrong during surgery?"</p>
  <p>Hannibal thought about it and slowly nodded, "It's definitely possible."</p>
  <p>The colonel felt every muscle in his body tense when he heard the BOOM overhead. He looked up, feeling a pins and needles sensation in the back of his neck, and he told B.A., "Storm's here."</p>
  <p>B.A. turned the windshield wipers on as a sudden downpour bombarded the ambulance, and he just continued to shake his head and said, "Don't like it, Hannibal, I don't like it."</p>
  <hr/>
  <p>Murdock stood by the window and watched the rain pour down and he asked the lieutenant behind him on the couch, "Face, you think Hannibal and the big guy are gonna be alright?"</p>
  <p>"Come on, Murdock, B.A.'s driven in worse weather than this, he can drive in anything, he can <em>drive</em> anything," Face told him, "He's to vehicles like you are to airplanes."</p>
  <p>Murdock shook his head and said, "Naw, I don't mean that, Facey, I mean you think they got out of the hospital alright? You don't think they had any problems, do you? I mean they've been gone a long time."</p>
  <p>"Hannibal knows what he's doing, Murdock," Face tried to be reassuring, "Just calm down."</p>
  <p>Murdock shook his head and said, "I don't know, Face, I got a bad feeling about this."</p>
  <p>"Murdock," Face said, "You know what they say about a watched pot never boiling? Well staring out that window isn't going to get Hannibal and B.A. back here any faster, so why don't you just sit down and relax? They'll be here soon enough."</p>
  <p>Murdock nervously clasped his hands together and nodded as he turned away from the window, one particularly large clap of thunder shook the house and sent Murdock sprinting right behind the couch, practically knocking Face off of it in the process.</p>
  <p>"Murdock, are you alright?" Face asked.</p>
  <p>Murdock popped his head up over the back cushions, but only from the nose up like a dog, and said, "Sure, Face, why do you ask?"</p>
  <p>"Oh…no reason," Face responded.</p>
  <p>Of course he could imagine why Murdock was acting so jittery. His only saving grace was that Hannibal had wanted the pilot around for a little down time together. Of course Face imagined Murdock would've telephoned and told them what was going on after he'd been informed about the next day's surgery, <em>if</em> he'd been able to. As wild as he was acting, Face knew if he hadn't stepped in, if they had caught Murdock, they probably would've sedated <em>him</em> too and then nobody would've known what was going on. He was starting to get that stabbing feeling of anxiety in the base of his skull all the way down his back too. That was one <em>hell</em> of a close call, what if Hannibal hadn't…no, no, he pushed that thought from his mind. What mattered was that Hannibal <em>had</em> said to get him, he <em>had</em> gone, he <em>had</em> gotten Murdock out of there, and now he was safe.</p>
  <p>"Murdock," Face said, feeling the catch in his throat as he spoke, "Why don't you come around here and sit down?"</p>
  <p>Murdock inched his face up higher and detected the uneasiness in the lieutenant's voice and said, "Sure, Face…what's the matter, are you nervous?"</p>
  <p>"Uh…yeah…a little I guess," Face said.</p>
  <p>"Okay," Murdock swung his legs over the back and dropped right down on the cushion next to Face and sympathetically patted his shoulder, "That better, Facey?"</p>
  <p>Face sucked in a shallow breath and said, "Yeah, thanks, Murdock."</p>
  <p>Murdock sensed that Face was wound up tight about something and though he didn't know what it was, he reached over and draped his arm over Face's shoulders to let the lieutenant know that he was there, and that between the two of them they could work out a solution.</p>
  <p>"Anything good on TV?" Murdock asked as he picked up the remote and flipped through the channels.</p>
  <p>"Not really."</p>
  <p>"You want to get lunch?" Murdock asked as he turned the TV off and tossed the remote down.</p>
  <p>"We already had lunch," Face reminded him.</p>
  <p>Murdock thought again and said, "How about we get dinner then?"</p>
  <p>Face turned to him with that familiar small, on-the-edge-of-cracking smile whenever he tried his damnedest to maintain a straight face at Murdocks' antics, but always failing miserably, "We just ate," he reminded the pilot.</p>
  <p>Murdock huffed and swung one foot back and forth like a clock pendulum at his last idea being shot down.</p>
  <p>"Well Hannibal and B.A. better get back soon or this is going to be a very <em>boring</em> afternoon," Murdock told him.</p>
  <p>A short while later, they saw the ambulance pull up out front and they ran out to see what was going on. They got out in time to see Hannibal carrying M.D. Murdock slung over his shoulder as he often did with B.A. when they were getting ready to board a plane. By now they had both discarded their hospital garb and were back to looking like perfectly normal lowlifes of downtown L.A, and as well as they could with Hannibal carrying the man, hurrying to get in out of the rain.</p>
  <p>"How'd it go, Colonel?" Murdock asked.</p>
  <p>"What happened?" was Face's question.</p>
  <p>"Everything's fine, everything went according to plan," Hannibal grunted as he got in the front door with his passenger in tow, "Aside from the fact that they took the courtesy to sedate our friend before we had a chance to talk with him. Murdock, the nurse says he hasn't slept in a week, are you <em>sure</em> you've never seen this guy before?"</p>
  <p>Murdock shook his head, "I never even heard about a new arrival."</p>
  <p>"Well two weeks there, how new can he really be?" Face asked as they followed Hannibal into the living room as he dumped their guest on the couch. Hannibal looked down at the unconscious man and grabbed the blanket off the couch's top and draped it over him.</p>
  <p>"Alright, now just wait a minute," B.A. said, now that he had everybody's attention, "Murdock knows every inch of that crazy hospital, so <em>how</em> is it he's never seen this other guy before?"</p>
  <p>Hannibal and Face looked at each other and considered the possibilities.</p>
  <p>"Isolation?" Face asked.</p>
  <p>"Maybe he was a regular patient initially and only recently got transferred to the psychiatric wing," Hannibal guessed, and he told the others, "I examined him on the way here, he's got some old bruising, looks like somebody beat him up a while back."</p>
  <p>Murdock dropped down on his knees next to the couch and looked at the young man who was blissfully unconscious and oblivious to his new surroundings.</p>
  <p>"He doesn't look like you, Murdock," Face told him.</p>
  <p>Murdock made a face at him and said, "You really know how to hurt a guy." He stroked his hand over the man's forehead and smoothed back his hair and said, "You never know, he could be a distant cousin of mine."</p>
  <p>"Ain't distant enough," B.A. told him, "He still found you, fool."</p>
  <p>Murdock took one of M.D.'s clammy hands in his and rubbed over the cool flesh and told the unconscious man, "Don't you pay no 'tention to him, cous, he just likes being an angry mudsucker."</p>
  <p>B.A. growled at him, but Hannibal quickly put an end to that and told the others, "I don't know how long our new friend is going to be asleep, but right now I'd say it's vital that he gets as much rest as is possible, and that means everybody <em>be quiet</em> and don't disturb him."</p>
  <p>Murdock nodded slightly and said quietly, "Got it, Colonel," and zipped his lips.</p>
  <p>Hannibal turned to Face and B.A. and told them, "You too."</p>
  <p>Face also made a gesture of zipping his mouth shut and putting the key in his pocket, B.A. just looked at Hannibal with his usual 'why me?' scowl every time he thought one of Hannibal's plans was crazy. Hannibal looked down at their new houseguest and said quietly, "Well Mr. Murdock, you just bought yourself a stay of execution, now it's just a matter of seeing what we can do with it."</p>
</div>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div>
  <p>As the afternoon passed and the A-Team waited for their guest to wake up, they tried passing the time quietly, all the while outside the storm continued to rage on. Murdock knocked the others for a loop by being surprisingly good, he opted to sit on the floor by the couch and stay near M.D. Murdock so they'd know when he woke up, and passed the time by playing a game of solitaire on the floor. It was a bit unnerving but as Face left the room, he turned back and was relieved to watch as Murdock snatched his cards back from an imaginary second player. He went into the kitchen where Hannibal and B.A. were and asked, "Well how long as we going to tiptoe around here before we just wake him up?"</p>
  <p>"Face, if we're going to find out what happened, we need him to be as lucid as possible, and after 7 days without any sleep, lucidity we are <em>not</em> going to get if he doesn't get some sleep first, you know that," Hannibal told him.</p>
  <p>"Alright, but what do we do in the meantime?" Face asked, "We can't watch TV, we can't talk, we can't do <em>anything</em> we normally would or it might wake up Sleeping Beauty in there."</p>
  <p>"Murdock's watching him now," Hannibal said, "I have a feeling once Mr. Murdock wakes up, none of us are going to be getting much sleep so I suggest we rest <em>now</em> while we wait."</p>
  <p>"Yeah…I guess so," Face hesitantly replied. He wasn't going to admit it but he was just a little uneasy about having <em>another</em> mental patient in their home; this one he didn't even know, there was no telling what he'd do, if he'd get violent, and if he did if Murdock would be able to restrain him. He went into the living room and quietly asked Murdock, "You gonna be okay watching him for a while?"</p>
  <p>Murdock answered by making an 'ok' signal with his hand before resuming his card game. Face nodded and, a bit reluctantly, left the room to go upstairs and lie down for a while.</p>
  <hr/>
  <p>One hour turned to two, multiplied into four, and it was going on dinner time and their guest still hadn't shown any signs of coming to anytime soon. Murdock had started to nod off himself when he heard the man on the couch grunting and groaning. He opened his eyes and tilted his head back to see what was going on; M.D. had gotten tangled up in the blanket and was trying to get out and, still in the realm of sleep, he got out a very coherent, "Get me out of this straitjacket!"</p>
  <p>"I like this guy," Murdock said as he got up and shook M.D.'s shoulder to rouse him, "Come on new buddy, wake up!"</p>
  <p>The man shot up on the couch screaming, then when he realized he was awake, he gasped for breath as he looked around at his new surroundings. When he turned to Murdock, the pilot waved his hand and said, "Hi there." The man screamed again, Murdock made a face at him and said, "Well that's a fine how-do-you-do."</p>
  <p>The others heard the screaming and came running, they knew the moment of truth had arrived now. The other Murdock wrangled his way out of the blanket and was practically perched on the back couch cushions like a vulture as the other four men crowded in on him. Murdock took it upon himself to be the voice of reasoning and told the others to back off.</p>
  <p>"What's going on?" the man asked them.</p>
  <p>"Mr. Murdock," Hannibal said as he put his hands up to show they didn't mean any harm, "Try to calm down, we're here to help."</p>
  <p>The young man standing on the couch looked at the four of them like a wild beast looking for a way out, he shifted his eyes from one person to another, and asked them, "Who are you?"</p>
  <p>"I'm Hannibal Smith, this," Hannibal pointed to the others, "Is B.A. Baracus, Templeton Peck, and that's H.M. Murdock, an esteemed alumni at your residence, the V.A. hospital."</p>
  <p>M.D. Murdock seemed to calm down at that and he looked at the pilot questioningly and asked, "Murdock?"</p>
  <p>"That's right," Hannibal said, "You're probably familiar with him, he's been one of the star residents there for 10 years."</p>
  <p>He shook his head and said, "I heard a little <em>of</em> him but I never saw him, I…" he looked around again and realized he wasn't in the hospital and asked them again, "What's going on here? Where am I?"</p>
  <p>"Well right now you're in our summer home," Face explained, "Would you mind getting off the furniture?"</p>
  <p>M.D. Murdock looked down and realized what Face meant, so he stepped down from the couch and said to them, "I don't get this…what do you want with me?"</p>
  <p>"Well I'd like to say it's very simple," Hannibal told him, "But <em>that</em> is going to depend largely on what you can tell us."</p>
  <p>"Yeah, like first of all, what's your name?" Face asked.</p>
  <p>"M.D. Murdock," he answered.</p>
  <p>"No, your full name," Face told him.</p>
  <p>"That <em>is</em> my full name," he explained, "My mother had an…offbeat sense of humor, decided to just give me a set of initials for a name."</p>
  <p>Face turned to Murdock and said, "Maybe you two <em>are</em> related."</p>
  <p>"Alright…Mister Murdock, were you aware that the hospital had you scheduled for an operation tomorrow morning?" Hannibal asked.</p>
  <p>He snorted and said, "Not an operation, a <em>lobotomy</em>!"</p>
  <p>"Do you know why?" Hannibal asked.</p>
  <p>"No," he shook his head, "Why?"</p>
  <p>"We were hoping <em>you</em> could tell <em>us</em> that," Face said.</p>
  <p>"Oh," he sat down on the couch and said, "I'm sorry I can't help you with that, but the truth is I really don't know anything."</p>
  <p>"Alright, how about this one," Hannibal said, "Why were you in the V.A. in the first place? We checked, there's no record of you belonging in the military anywhere."</p>
  <p>"That's because I never served," M.D. told him as he rubbed his head like he had a migraine.</p>
  <p>"Then <em>why</em> were you in the hospital?" Face asked.</p>
  <p>"I don't know," M.D. told them, "I didn't even know what hospital it was, they transferred me there from another one, moved me in during the night when it was dark, I couldn't tell where we were going."</p>
  <p>"Murdock," Hannibal looked to the pilot, "Is that standard protocol for bringing in new patients?"</p>
  <p>"Not as I know, Colonel," Murdock answered, "Can I ask some questions now?"</p>
  <p>"Go ahead," Hannibal told him.</p>
  <p>Murdock went over to M.D. and asked him, "So what's your case? Schizophrenia, multiple personality disorder, manic depressiveness, paranoia, kleptomania, post traumatic stress, pyromania, delusional disorder, or how about exhibitionism?"</p>
  <p>"<em>Huh</em>?" B.A. asked.</p>
  <p>"That's a term for people who like walking around with no clothes on, B.A.," Face explained.</p>
  <p>"I <em>know</em> what it means, sucker," he replied.</p>
  <p>"I don't know what you're talking about," M.D. said, "I'm <em>not</em> insane."</p>
  <p>"Now <em>don't</em> be that way, cous," Murdock said as he put his arms around the notably uncomfortable man, "The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem, besides," he leaned over and said into the man's ear, "People who say they're not insane generally are."</p>
  <p>"Well I'm not," M.D. told him as he shrugged out of Murdock's grasp, "I already told them all of that, I told everybody, but nobody would listen."</p>
  <p>"What do you mean?" Hannibal asked.</p>
  <p>M.D. looked at him and said, "I was locked up in a mental hospital two years ago, I <em>told</em> the doctors there, I told <em>everybody</em> at the time it happened that I wasn't insane, but nobody believed me."</p>
  <p>"Well I believe you," Murdock told him, "You're not fun enough to be insane."</p>
  <p>"Don't mind him, Mr. Murdock," Hannibal said, "He's always this way."</p>
  <p>"But I still don't understand, where am I?" M.D. asked, "Why am I here?"</p>
  <p>"Well that's a little harder to explain," Face told him, "You see…<em>your</em> file got mixed up with Murdock's and they were going to give <em>him</em> the lobotomy, when we got that mess straightened out, we got curious about there being another patient in the hospital with his name."</p>
  <p>He looked at them with wide, unbelieving eyes and asked, "And you got me out? How?"</p>
  <p>"It wasn't easy," Hannibal answered, "Believe me."</p>
  <p>Hannibal knew that they weren't going to get anywhere unless they confided the truth in him, so he took it upon himself to break the news, "You see, Mr. Murdock, <em>we</em> are the A-Team, and," he pointed to Murdock, "This is our pilot. We break him out of the hospital whenever we need him to fly us somewhere for a mission, that's how Face happened to be at the hospital today to find out all of this stuff."</p>
  <p>M.D.'s eyes widened in disbelief and he repeated, "You're the A-Team? I don't believe it."</p>
  <p>"Why not?" Murdock asked, "You've never seen any of us before, you can't say that you're surprised."</p>
  <p>M.D. looked at them and opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it and closed it again.</p>
  <p>"You're the A-Team?" he said again, and laughed nervously, "Go figure." He looked to Murdock and asked, "Is he <em>really</em> insane?"</p>
  <p>"We think so," Hannibal said.</p>
  <p>"Uh-huh," M.D. said dryly, "And you trust him to fly you guys?"</p>
  <p>"Well just because he's insane doesn't mean he doesn't know what he's doing," Face pointed out.</p>
  <p>"That's right," Murdock said with a sharp nod, "They may have taken my pilot's license but I can still get <em>any</em> bird in the air."</p>
  <p>"You should," B.A. told him as he rolled his eyes, "You' a dodo yourself, fool."</p>
  <p>"Don't pay too much attention to them, Mr. Murdock," Hannibal said, "Where they come from that's just small talk."</p>
  <p>"Uh, just call me Mad Dog," he replied, "That's what all my friends used to call me."</p>
  <p>"How come?" Face asked.</p>
  <p>He shrugged and said, "Just did, and then it stuck."</p>
  <p>"Huh…" Face turned to Murdock and said, "Howling Mad and Mad Dog, that's a hell of a combination, Murdock."</p>
  <p>"I'll say," Murdock agreed, "This ought to be great." He went over to Mad Dog and asked Hannibal, "Can't we keep him, Colonel?"</p>
  <p>"Murdock, he's not a puppy," Hannibal reminded him, "In any case you have Billy for that." Murdock opened his mouth to respond but Hannibal cut him off and shook his head, "No no, Mr. Murdock here has his own family to take him back as soon as we can figure out why he was in the hospital."</p>
  <p>Mad Dog snorted and said, "That's what you think."</p>
  <p>"What's that mean?" Face asked.</p>
  <p>"My mom died when I was 18, and I never knew my father," he told them, "No brothers or sisters, no aunts or uncles, and my grandparents died when I was a kid, I got nobody looking for me, believe me."</p>
  <p>This seemed to make Murdock hopeful again and he tried asking Hannibal again, but once more the colonel shook his head and said, "Sorry, Murdock, it just wouldn't work."</p>
  <p>"Well you don't know," Murdock wasn't ready to give up, "He could still be my cousin, he could be a long lost cousin or first cousin twice removed, or something like that."</p>
  <p>"What's he talking about?" Mad Dog asked.</p>
  <p>"Nothing," Face tried to assure him, "Just his usual crazy talk, you learn to tune it out after a while."</p>
  <p>"Alright, Mad Dog," Hannibal said, "You say you're not insane, the hospital said you were, if you weren't <em>why</em> were you put in there? Especially seeing as how you yourself pointed out, you have no family to commit you?"</p>
  <p>Mad Dog looked down at the floor and told him, "It's a long story."</p>
  <p>Hannibal turned to Face and said, "I <em>told</em> you we wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight."</p>
  <p>Face only nodded in response and rolled his eyes.</p>
  <p>"Can I ask you guys a question?" Mad Dog asked, "It's not that I <em>don't</em> trust you guys, but…"</p>
  <p>"You don't trust us," Face finished the sentence for him.</p>
  <p>"Well I'm just wondering how I'm supposed to <em>know</em> that I can," he said, "After the two years I've had, I find it hard to put anything past anybody in the way of what they're capable of doing."</p>
  <p>"Well it's a fair point," Hannibal concurred, "Unfortunately the only answer I can come up with is that you don't have any choice."</p>
  <p>"I suppose I don't," Mad Dog responded, "But what do you want with me?"</p>
  <p>"If possible, if what you say is true," Hannibal told him, "We'd like to try and help you."</p>
  <p>"I doubt you could," Mad Dog said, "I doubt anybody can help me."</p>
  <p>"Well calm down, cousin, no need to get all testy just yet," Murdock told him as he grabbed the man's arm to get his attention, "Let us try, now come on, what's going on? How did you wind up in the padded room hotel?"</p>
  <p>Mad Dog turned to him and retorted, "How did <em>you</em>?"</p>
  <p>"That's an even longer story," Murdock told him.</p>
  <p>"Mister Murdock," Hannibal spoke up, "Perhaps you could at least tell us, who beat you up? How did you get those bruises under your shirt?"</p>
  <p>Mad Dog lifted up the hem of his T-shirt and saw the yellow marks Hannibal had been referring to.</p>
  <p>"I got in a fight," he sheepishly answered as he lowered his shirt, "Well actually I was just attacked, by half a dozen orderlies and doctors."</p>
  <p>"They restrain you?" Hannibal asked.</p>
  <p>"Sometimes," he answered, "Sometimes they tie me to the bed, other times they just put me in a straitjacket."</p>
  <p>"Did you ever do <em>anything</em> to warrant that treatment?" Hannibal asked, "Did you <em>ever</em> get violent with them first?"</p>
  <p>"Me? Get violent with those nuts? Are you crazy?" Mad Dog asked.</p>
  <p>"No, <em>I'm</em> crazy," Murdock told him.</p>
  <p>Something occurred to Mad Dog and he said, "Wait a minute…if you broke me <em>out</em> of the hospital, then they're going to be looking for me, aren't they?"</p>
  <p>"Not with the story we gave them," Hannibal shook his head.</p>
  <p>"Are you sure?" Mad Dog asked.</p>
  <p>"Positive," Hannibal nodded.</p>
  <p>Mad Dog let out a long exhale and looked like he was about to collapse.</p>
  <p>"Alright, now let's try and figure this out," Hannibal said as he bit down on a new cigar and lit it, "Why would the doctors at the V.A. suddenly come up with the idea to perform a lobotomy on you, somebody who had only been there two weeks?"</p>
  <p>They all tried putting their heads together on that one to come up with some answer. Unfortunately Mad Dog couldn't think of any reason why, and since he couldn't it was a cinch nobody else could come up with a good enough reason to justify cutting a man's head open and taking out part of his brain. They all stood in the middle of the living room trying to come up with a possibility, when an idea seemed to hit Murdock. Out of nowhere he started yelping 'ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!' with his hand in the air and hopping around, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.</p>
  <p>"Murdock," Face said dryly, not in the mood for Murdock's antics, "You <em>know</em> where the bathroom is."</p>
  <p>Murdock stopped hopping around and punched Face in the back in response to his comment and said, "<em>No</em>, Face, I've got it, I've got it."</p>
  <p>"What?" Face asked.</p>
  <p>"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."</p>
  <p>Face turned and exploded, "<em>What?!</em>"</p>
  <p>"No no no, I got that wrong," Murdock said, "But I'm close…Hannibal," he went over to the colonel and said, "Hannibal, you remember that old movie where Elizabeth Taylor's aunt is trying to have a lobotomy performed on her?"</p>
  <p>"I don't think that's quite right, Murdock," Hannibal said, "But yes, I remember, why? What's that got to do with anything?"</p>
  <p>Murdock had the floor now, and he rolled with it as he explained, "The aunt tried to have the procedure done to <em>shut her up</em>, so nobody would find out the horrible secret that she told everybody and nobody believed. The aunt was worried sooner or later somebody <em>would</em> believe and ordered the lobotomy to silence her. What if that's the same thing going on here?"</p>
  <p>Hannibal and the others looked back to their guest and asked, "How 'bout it, Mad Dog? Is there any reason anybody would want to have you silenced?"</p>
  <p>"Sure, why not?" Mad Dog replied flatly, "We all got enemies, right?"</p>
  <p>"I'm serious," Hannibal told him, "You said you told them you weren't insane and they didn't listen, if you're not, then <em>why</em> were you in the hospital in the first place?"</p>
  <p>"Like I said, it's a long story," he responded, "In any case, why would <em>you</em> believe me? Nobody else has."</p>
  <p>"Well we're not everybody else," Face reminded him, "We're the good guys, and we always believe the people nobody else will."</p>
  <p>"Yeah well…I doubt you could believe this one," Mad Dog told them as he sat down again, "And I doubt that you could help me either."</p>
  <p>"So let us try," Hannibal said, "If we fail, what've you got to lose?"</p>
  <p>"My life maybe," he said.</p>
  <p>"No, cous, we won't let that happen," Murdock said as he sat down on the arm of the couch by him, "We won't let anybody get their grimy paws on you again."</p>
  <p>Mad Dog looked from Murdock, to Hannibal and told him with a shake of his head, "It ain't gonna be easy to explain."</p>
  <p>"We've got time," Hannibal assured him.</p>
  <p>Mad Dog's eyes widened and he shot up from the couch again and said suddenly, "Wait a minute, what about Frankie?"</p>
  <p>"Who's Frankie?" Face asked.</p>
  <p>"If I'm going to explain this to you, Frankie's got to be here too so you get the whole story," Mad Dog told them.</p>
  <p>"Alright, calm down," Face told him, "We'll find Frankie…uh, who <em>is</em> Frankie?"</p>
  <p>"She's my girlfriend, or was," Mad Dog answered.</p>
  <p>Face turned to Murdock and asked, "That's a woman's name?"</p>
  <p>"Alright," Hannibal said, "We'll get Frankie, where does she live?"</p>
  <p>Mad Dog covered his mouth with his hand and looked like he was going to be sick.</p>
  <p>"Where is she?" Hannibal asked.</p>
  <p>"In the hospital," he answered.</p>
  <p>"That can't be," Face shook his head and he explained to the others, "There aren't any women at the V.A., the nurse told me as much."</p>
  <p>"Not the V.A. hospital," Mad Dog told him, "She's in the Freemont Psychiatric Hospital here in Los Angeles."</p>
  <p>Face glanced over at Hannibal uncertainly and said, "I've heard of that place, it's relatively new…but what's she doing there?"</p>
  <p>"Please, you've just got to get her out, she can tell you why," Mad Dog said, "She's not insane either."</p>
  <p>"Huh," Hannibal said, "Seems to be an epidemic. Alright, we'll go over there, check it out, and find a way to get her out. What's her full name?"</p>
  <p>"Frankie Lynn Murdock," Mad Dog answered.</p>
  <p>Everybody did a double take and glared back at him.</p>
  <p>"Seems to be an epidemic of that too," Face murmured to Hannibal, then he raised his voice and said, "Another Murdock? Just like you?"</p>
  <p>"No, her name is Murdock with a K, I'm Murdoch with an H," Mad Dog told them.</p>
  <p>"This just gets crazier and crazier," B.A. said disgustedly.</p>
  <p>"Yeah, don't you just love it?" Murdock asked.</p>
  <p>"No I don't, sucker!" B.A. told him.</p>
  <p>"You don't really mean she's called Frankie, you mean her full name is Francis Lynn, right?" Face asked.</p>
  <p>Mad Dog shook his head, "Frankie, that's the name she was born with."</p>
  <p>Face turned to Hannibal and asked him, "Does <em>everybody's</em> mother have a sense of humor when they name their kids?"</p>
  <p>"Mine didn't," Hannibal answered with a shake of his head, "Just plain old John Smith, you can't get much duller than that."</p>
</div>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div>
  <p>"Look," Hannibal said as he turned his wrist and showed the others his watch to make his point, "It's too late in the night to go over to Freemont Psychiatric Ward and bust Frankie Lynn Murdock out tonight, we're going to have to wait until tomorrow when we can get in there and find out what room she's in. I have an idea that she will keep until then." He turned back to Mad Dog and added, "Unless you know something we don't know."</p>
  <p>"No," Mad Dog shook his head, "I haven't heard from Frankie in two months since she got committed."</p>
  <p>"Well maybe you can help explain this to us," Face suggested, "Exactly <em>how</em> do a bunch of 'sane' people wind up getting institutionalized in the fruitcake factory?"</p>
  <p>"I can't explain it," Mad Dog said, "I don't know."</p>
  <p>"Well how did you get there?" Murdock asked.</p>
  <p>"I told you, you won't get it until you hear the whole story and to do that we need to get Frankie here, she can tell you more than I can."</p>
  <p>"Normally we don't go by somebody's word alone when we don't even <em>have</em> the word," Hannibal told him, "However since this is a rather pressing matter, we're willing to make an exception. For the night, you'll stay here, you can bunk with Murdock in his room, I think that would be the best decision for everybody."</p>
  <p>Mad Dog glanced over at Murdock whose eyes had lit up like a jack-o-lantern and he had a grin to match, and Mad Dog wondered what he had gotten himself into.</p>
  <p>"Hannibal, are you sure this is a good idea?" Face asked as he followed Hannibal to the stairwell in the hall.</p>
  <p>"Would you rather have him staying with you?" Hannibal asked.</p>
  <p>"We don't know anything about this guy, what if he's dangerous? What if he tries to kill Murdock in the night?" Face asked.</p>
  <p>"That's why we're going to take turns standing guard outside the door," Hannibal explained, "You take the first watch, B.A. gets the next shift, and I keep an ear open until dawn. It's as simple as that."</p>
  <p>"Oh, simple as that, eh?" Face replied mockingly.</p>
  <p>"Face, it'll be fine, trust me."</p>
  <p>"Trust you, every time I hear that I always wind up regretting it," Face said.</p>
  <p>"<em>You</em> might, but Murdock doesn't," Hannibal told him.</p>
  <p>"Hannibal," Face said, "Murdock can look on the bright side of a plane crash."</p>
  <hr/>
  <p>Murdock had been thrilled to have a roommate for the night. Hannibal advised him not to keep the slumber party going too late since they had work to do first thing in the morning. Once they'd gone off to their separate rooms for the night, Murdock had lent Mad Dog a spare set of his pajamas for something clean to change into for the night. He got an idea that tonight was the first time in a <em>very</em> long time that the young man had had a good hot meal and a hot shower.</p>
  <p>To hear Mad Dog talk, he hadn't been restrained excessively while he was locked up but wherever he'd been kept <em>before</em> the V.A. had been more like a prison than the hospital Murdock was staying at. He was just as curious as everyone else to find out what was going on and get to the bottom of it, but he believed Mad Dog when he said they had to find Frankie to get the whole story. It would be like him trying to single handedly explain how the A-Team came to be a gang of wanted fugitives, when he hadn't even been there for the most part. Sure, he could explain part of it, and it would make <em>some</em> sense, but to fully understand it would have to come from the men who had actually been there to tell about it.</p>
  <p>When Mad Dog came back in from the bathroom, he looked very different; indeed it would appear this was the first time in quite a while that the young man had been able to get cleaned up. Murdock wondered how he had ever come to be at the V.A., and how nobody had noticed what was going on.</p>
  <p>Mad Dog looked around the room as if he was expecting something to jump out at him, and he turned to Murdock and asked, "You sure this is alright?"</p>
  <p>"Oh sure, it'll be fine," Murdock answered as he went to unmake the bed for them, "I just love having a roommate. You know they tend to frown on that kind of stuff when you're in a hospital for some reason."</p>
  <p>Mad Dog looked around the room as if he was trying to find something to fixate on, and coming up empty he looked back to the pilot and told him, "I don't know what to say…I mean I <em>really</em> don't know what to say."</p>
  <p>"Well that's alright, I imagine there'll be <em>plenty</em> to talk about tomorrow once we get your girlfriend here," Murdock said, "So what's she like? Is she a lively one?"</p>
  <p>"Well…she used to be, anymore, I don't know," Mad Dog answered. He saw Murdock reaching for the knob on the lamp and he grabbed the pilot's hand and said, "Listen…uh…can the lights stay on?"</p>
  <p>"Oh sure, hey look," Murdock pointed over to the window where he had taken the liberty of stringing up a set of plastic luau lights with pineapples and palm trees and plugged them in and turned off the main light, "How's that?"</p>
  <p>"Terrific," Mad Dog answered.</p>
  <p>He went over to the bed and climbed in on the opposite side from Murdock, both men yanked the covers up high and went through a whole process of tossing, turning, flipping, and doing everything to the pillows short of kneading them like bread, to get comfortable.</p>
  <p>"Boy this is <em>nice</em>," Mad Dog said as he settled back against the mattress and pillows.</p>
  <p>"Yeah, it sure beats the beds they give us at the hospital, don't it?" Murdock asked.</p>
  <p>"Mm-hmm," Mad Dog hummed in his throat as he relaxed.</p>
  <p>Murdock half sat up and reached over and stroked over Mad Dog's forehead and smoothed back his damp hair.</p>
  <p>"How old are you, M.D.?" he asked.</p>
  <p>"Twenty…five," he answered.</p>
  <p>Murdock nodded knowingly, "Time tends to get away from ya in the mental hospital, I know, many's a time I have to take out my driver's license to make sure I'm still thirty…twenty…five-six-seven-eight…oh well, doesn't matter."</p>
  <p>Mad Dog seemed to be holding his breath, when Murdock didn't say anything further, he exhaled and closed his eyes.</p>
  <p>"I hope Frankie's alright," he said.</p>
  <p>"Did she come to see you in the hospital before <em>she</em> got locked up?" Murdock asked.</p>
  <p>He nodded, "Yeah, got in trouble for it, they caught her staying the night once, fight broke out, I was sure that we were both going to be killed."</p>
  <p>"They let her back in after that?" Murdock asked.</p>
  <p>"A few times, but she was watched after that, we both were…and then she got put away and I haven't seen her since," Mad Dog explained.</p>
  <p>"Well, if all goes according to plan, we ought to all be seeing her tomorrow," Murdock assured him.</p>
  <p>"What plan?"</p>
  <p>"I don't know, that's Hannibal's specialty, but he <em>always</em> has a plan, and they're usually brilliant."</p>
  <hr/>
  <p>"Horrible thing, suicide," Hannibal told the nurses at the Freemont Psychiatric Hospital the next morning.</p>
  <p>He had gone this time dressed as a police officer and hadn't found any trouble in convincing the staff that he was just that. Of course it didn't hurt any that most of the staff he'd encountered so far were a bunch of young women who looked like they barely graduated from nursing school.</p>
  <p>He continued speaking to the nurses, "Of course we can't officially rule it one way or the other until the county coroner gets back with his report, but it seems a pretty open and shut case. We've got his gun, his prints on it, his hand covered in nitrate, an entry wound indicating that he was shot at damn close range, and a note, don't get much simpler than that except if we had it on videotape. All the same, my superiors want me to run down every possible lead and make sure we leave no stone unturned. In his note he mentioned a woman named Frankie Lynn Murdock, said that he must make amends for the horrible wrong he'd done to her two years ago. Either of you ladies have any idea just what that may be?"</p>
  <p>"I'm sorry, officer, but we don't know anything about that," one of the nurses, a timid young woman who had trouble looking him in the eye, said as she instead gazed down at her white shoes.</p>
  <p>"Well you <em>do</em> have a patient in this hospital by that name, don't you?" Hannibal asked in an accusatory tone.</p>
  <p>"Yes, but she's only been here for a couple of months," another nurse answered.</p>
  <p>"Well I don't care how long she's been here, it's crucial to my investigation that I talk to this woman, to find out if there's anything behind the suicide note."</p>
  <p>The two young women looked at each other and the first one looked back to him and said, "I'm sorry, officer, but we can't bring her to you, the doctor gave specific orders that she remain on bed rest."</p>
  <p>"Well then you take me up to see her," Hannibal told them, "Otherwise I'm going to have to run both of you in for obstructing my investigation. Now I don't <em>want</em> to, but that happens to be the law, so please make it easier for all of us and tell me where I can find her."</p>
  <p>The second one kept her eyes down on the records on the desk and said, "She's up on the third floor, room 318."</p>
  <p>"I'm sure I can find it myself, thank you ladies," Hannibal said smugly as he walked off towards the elevator.</p>
  <p>Hannibal got in an empty elevator car and pressed the third floor. When the doors opened up he stepped out and looked left and right at the numbers on the doors as he passed. He came to room 318 and slowly opened the door; the nurses had said Frankie was on bedrest, but what did that prove? For all he knew that woman would come swinging at him like Tarzan or Sabu the Jungle Boy, or maybe he was just too used to Murdock's antics from over the years, but why take any chances?</p>
  <p>"Miss Murdock?" he called out as he pushed the door open and looked in.</p>
  <p>He needn't have been so careful. The woman in the room was indeed in bed; <em>handcuffed</em> by one wrist to the metal railing of the bed. Hannibal stepped in, closed the door behind him and went over to the bed to get a better look at her. She was young, maybe 22, she had thin blonde hair that looked like it had been cropped off recently, her skin was a touch pale, she looked like she hadn't had any direct exposure to sunlight for a month, she was thin but not quite gaunt, and she was knocked out cold.</p>
  <p>"Miss Murdock," he said a bit louder as he pressed his hand against her shoulder and shook her to try rousing her.</p>
  <p>But he knew there was no waking her up anytime soon, and there would be no getting any answers out of her for quite a while. He took his walkie talkie out of his police belt, hiding in plain sight he'd had to laugh, and got on it to tell the others, "I found her…she's drugged up right now so she won't be talking."</p>
  <p>B.A.'s booming voice came back on the radio, "So what'll we do now, Hannibal?"</p>
  <p>"We'll go ahead with the plan as scheduled," Hannibal replied, then turned the walkie talkie off. He stood over the young woman and watched her in her drug induced sleep. He stroked his hand over the top of her head and said quietly, "We'll be seeing you tonight, Frankie." Then he turned to the door and walked out.</p>
  <p>Once the elevator opened on the ground floor again, he spotted one of the nurses and demanded to know, "Why didn't you tell me that she is sedated?"</p>
  <p>"I can answer that," a doctor said as he came up to them, "Miss Murdock is under <em>my</em> care and she has been sedated for her own protection."</p>
  <p>"Protection?" Hannibal scoffed, "How much damage could she cause?"</p>
  <p>"She's chained to that bed for a reason, <em>officer</em>," the doctor said condescendingly.</p>
  <p>Ooh what Hannibal wouldn't give to use his government manufactured virus strain line on <em>this</em> guy. Still he remained his usual calm, slow burning self and replied, "Well I don't care a frog's behind for your reasons, doc, she's a key witness in my investigation and I <em>will</em> be back to interview her, you have her awake and alert when I come in tomorrow at 10 o' clock sharp."</p>
  <p>"That's impo…"</p>
  <p>"<em>10 o' clock</em> sharp, doc, or I'll have you thrown in jail for interfering with my investigation. Good day."</p>
  <hr/>
  <p>"I'd sure like to know how Hannibal comes up with these ideas of his," Face said as he adjusted his orderly uniform.</p>
  <p>"As long as they work that's all that matters," B.A. told him.</p>
  <p>Face nodded weakly, "I suppose so, but this is just getting a little too cartoony for my liking."</p>
  <p>They moved quickly and quietly and made their way in through the back entrance of the hospital and blended in with the other workers. They found a large laundry cart with some fresh towels and sheets in it and B.A. pushed it while Face went on ahead and dictated which rooms they went to.</p>
  <p>When Hannibal had gotten back earlier that day, he'd given them the entire layout of the hospital as well as he'd been able to make it. He'd done a good job of a two bit hick cop who found it very easy to get lost around the hospital and it had gotten him brief access to the staff quarters, the laundry room, and the back exit purely for emergencies and only for the personnel of the hospital.</p>
  <p>They wheeled the cart into the elevator, went up to the second floor, got off, made a few phony rounds, delivering towels and sheets into patients' rooms, all for show, and then wheeled the cart back into the elevator and went up to the third floor.</p>
  <p>"I hope we don't regret this," Face murmured, more to himself than to B.A.</p>
  <p>"Hey Face, this' the only way we' gonna find out what's going on," B.A. told him.</p>
  <p>"Alright then, I hope <em>I</em> don't regret this," he amended his previous statement.</p>
  <p>"I just hope it don't turn out this lady related to Murdock," B.A. told him, It's already bad enough we' getting stuck with three of them, but for two of them to be family, that's worse."</p>
  <p>"Oh come on, B.A., look on the bright side, if she <em>is</em> Murdock's family then he might hang over her and leave you alone," Face suggested.</p>
  <p>The doors opened on the third floor and they got out and pushed their way along through the hall and came to room 318. They both went in and closed the door behind them, kept the lights off and taking a penlight out of his pocket, Face went over to the bed and shone it on the woman asleep in the bed.</p>
  <p>"That's her alright, just as Hannibal described, here B.A., hold this," Face said as he handed his light to the sergeant.</p>
  <p>B.A. held the light steady as Face took a lock pick out of his pocket and used it on the handcuffs. After a few seconds the cuff sprang open. "Just like taking candy from a baby," Face said as he pocketed his pick and freed Frankie's wrist, "Ooh boy that's nice and red. Come on, B.A., help me."</p>
  <p>B.A. went over to the bed and together they lifted her up and into the laundry cart and covered her up with a pile of towels and sheets.</p>
  <p>"We're halfway home," Face told B.A., "Now we just have to get out of here the same way."</p>
  <p>They pushed the cart and left the room and headed back towards the elevator. They took it down to the ground floor and without drawing any attention to themselves, made their way to the laundry room; it was empty as this time of night so nobody was around to watch as they fished Frankie out of the cart and slipped a set of scrubs on over her pajamas.</p>
  <p>"Are you sure this is gonna work, Face?" B.A. asked.</p>
  <p>"I think so," he replied as he wrestled the unconscious woman into a pair of green pants, "Just uh…let me borrow one of your chains, okay?"</p>
  <p>"My chains? What for?" B.A. asked.</p>
  <p>"I've got an idea," Face said, not sounding as convincing as he felt, which wasn't much better.</p>
  <p>When he finished, they left the laundry room and appeared to anybody who saw them to be three colleagues leaving together for the night. Face stood on one side of Frankie and helped hold her up as they walked, and on the other side, B.A.'s massive frame concealed the fact that Frankie was half strung up like a marionette puppet; Face had tied one of B.A.'s chains around her wrist to look like a bracelet, and looped it over so B.A. held onto the other end and tugged on it to keep her other arm up so it looked like she was a normal, conscious person walking out of the hospital with them. They reached the back entrance and made their way out into the night, and once there, B.A. picked Frankie up and they took off running for the ambulance.</p>
  <p>"We got her, Hannibal," Face said into his radio as they took off.</p>
  <p>"That's fine," Hannibal replied, "We'll be waiting for you."</p>
  <p>Face groaned as he signed off and he said to B.A., "I just <em>know</em> that we're going to regret this."</p>
  <p>"Hey man," B.A. said, "Ain't you the one always saying to be positive?"</p>
  <p>"I am, I'm <em>positive</em> that we're going to regret this," Face told him.</p>
  <p>"Hey Face," B.A. growled warningly, "Just remember, related or not, we got enough trouble already so don't be falling head over heels with this mama."</p>
  <p>"Oh come on, B.A., give me some credit," Face replied, "Besides, she's not that good looking anyway." He glanced back at the woman in the back of the ambulance and added, "Come to think of it, how <em>anybody</em> could find her attractive is beyond me."</p>
  <hr/>
  <p>Hannibal, Murdock and Mad Dog were all out in the front anxiously awaiting Face and B.A. to return. They saw the ambulance come up the street with all its lights off and saw it pull around to the back so no nosey neighbors would see anything worth inquiring about. They ran around to the back in time to see Face and B.A. get out and go around to open the back doors.</p>
  <p>"How'd it go?" Hannibal asked.</p>
  <p>"Off without a hitch, just like you said it would, surprisingly," Face answered.</p>
  <p>"I told you it would," Hannibal said, "You ought to believe me by now."</p>
  <p>"That remains to be seen, Hannibal, now come on, let's get her inside and wake her up," Face said as B.A. carried Frankie over to the back door.</p>
  <p>With everybody trying to get inside at once it was a tight squeeze through the door, B.A. moved to the living room and laid Frankie out on the couch.</p>
  <p>"She's cute," Murdock observed.</p>
  <p>"Frankie!" Mad Dog couldn't believe it when he set his eyes upon her. He fell down beside the couch and grabbed her, shook her to try and wake her up.</p>
  <p>"You won't get anywhere doing that, my friend," Hannibal said as he picked up a glass of water from the dining room table, "If you want to wake her up you'll have to be a little more direct." And he proved his point by tossing the glass of water onto the young woman.</p>
  <p>Frankie sputtered and her eyelids flew up and she looked up and saw the four men hovering over her and she screamed and jumped up and demanded to know, "Who are you!?"</p>
  <p>"Frankie!" Mad Dog was overcome with relief at seeing her awake and he nearly collapsed on the floor.</p>
  <p>She turned to the man who had called her and her eyes widened in disbelief. "Murdoch!" she jumped off the couch and ran over to him and hugged him tight, "Are you alright?"</p>
  <p>"I'm fine, Frankie, how're you?" he replied.</p>
  <p>"How'd you get out?" she asked, then something hit her, "For that matter, how did <em>I</em> get out?"</p>
  <p>"Frankie," Mad Dog gestured to the others and said, "This is the A-Team."</p>
  <p>She turned to look at the men and said, "The <em>what</em>?"</p>
  <p>"The A-Team, Miss Murdock," Hannibal calmly replied, "That <em>is</em> your name, isn't it?"</p>
  <p>"Of course it's my name, but how did you know?" she wanted to know.</p>
  <p>Over everybody talking, M.D. managed to get her introduced to the others one by one. The sound of the phone ringing broke through the garbled conversations, and Face left the room to answer it.</p>
  <p>"Frankie," Mad Dog said, "You've got to tell the others what happened, they think that they can help us."</p>
  <p>Frankie looked at Hannibal, Murdock and B.A. and said, "Help what?"</p>
  <p>"Look, lady, the whole reason we busted you out of that psycho ward was because your boyfriend insisted we needed <em>you</em> here to tell us the whole story of how <em>he</em> came to be locked up in the V.A. hospital."</p>
  <p>"How did you know about that?" Frankie asked.</p>
  <p>"How do you do?" Murdock took a step towards her and shook her hand, "Howling Mad Murdock, V.A.H.P.W. class of '73."</p>
  <p>"What?" Frankie asked with a dumbfounded look on her face.</p>
  <p>"Veterans Administrative Hospital, Psychiatric Wing," Murdock answered, "You see…" and then everybody started talking over one another again.</p>
  <p>Face slammed the receiver back on the hook and marched back into the living room and roared at the top of his lungs, "HANNIBAL!" and that caused the jibber-jabber to die down. When he had the colonel's attention Face said to him, "We need to talk."</p>
  <p>"What about?"</p>
  <p>"I did some checking on our guest here once I found out that nobody under the name M.D. Murdock served in the military, and I double checked under the revised spelling, still no results, in the military, but I did find out what started this whole mess. I just got off with a source who checked the records, it turns out that 3 years ago in Bakersfield, M.D. Murdoch was arrested for first degree murder, and an insanity defense bought him a one-way ticket to the Freemont hospital we just busted his girlfriend out of."</p>
  <p>All eyes were on their two guests now. Hannibal looked at Mad Dog and said, "Alright, there's your other half," he pointed to Frankie, "So start explaining, and my advice to you is to talk fast."</p>
</div>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div>
  <p>"First of all let me just say that this is not going to be easy to explain," Mad Dog said as he put his hands up in a mocking surrender gesture.</p>
  <p>Frankie didn't seem quite as concerned about the facts at hand and instead asked the A-Team, "You got any booze in the house? Because that's the <em>only</em> way we're going to be able to get through this story." And she walked past them to find the kitchen and subsequently the liquor cabinet.</p>
  <p>"Alright, yes, I was arrested for murder, but I didn't do it," Mad Dog told them.</p>
  <p>"Of course not," Face dryly remarked, "Nobody ever does it."</p>
  <p>"What about you?" Frankie asked as she reappeared with a bottle of vodka from the kitchen, "Everybody knows about the A-Team, did you really rob the Bank of Hanoi?"</p>
  <p>"Point taken," Hannibal told her, "But if he didn't do it, then what's going on?"</p>
  <p>"Like I said, it's a long story," Frankie undid the lid on the bottle, swallowed a swig of it and said, "Okay, 3 years ago Murdoch and I met when the local college was participating in a silent film festival."</p>
  <p>"In Bakersfield?" Face asked.</p>
  <p>"No," Frankie told him, "In <em>my</em> hometown, Cranston, a <em>little</em> place near Bakersfield, about as easy to drive through without noticing as Rhode Island. We're a little town with little to do, especially if you don't have any money, such as ourselves. When the college ran the silent film festival it was one way of getting free entertainment with a live band accompaniment. That was how we met, he was tripping over everybody's feet trying to get a seat and he fell in my lap, quite literally. After that we hit it off and we began to see quite a bit of each other. More often than not though, I wound up going to Bakersfield to see him, that's how this whole mess got started in the first place."</p>
  <p>"We're listening," Hannibal told them.</p>
  <p>Frankie and Mad Dog glanced at each other uncertainly, she squeezed his shoulder and took the initiative to explain and she told them, "One night when I was staying over, we fell asleep together, I woke up later and saw Murdoch standing over me, covered in blood…he said 'there's a lady downstairs, I think I killed her'. So I got up and we ran down to see what had happened."</p>
  <p>"What did happen?" Face asked.</p>
  <p>"There was a woman downstairs in the living room, she was dead," Frankie answered matter-of-factly as though it was a common occurrence, "She'd been stabbed I don't know how many times."</p>
  <p>"Where was the knife?" Murdock asked.</p>
  <p>"On the floor by her body of course and yes it had Murdoch's prints on it," Frankie told them, "We were trying to figure out what had happened when the police came. They busted into the place and dragged him out."</p>
  <p>"Who called the police?" Hannibal asked.</p>
  <p>"We never found out, some anonymous caller I suppose," Frankie answered bitterly, "They stormed in, grabbed Murdoch, hauled him out in handcuffs, took him to jail."</p>
  <p>"Well it's understandable," Face said.</p>
  <p>"Sure, except that there was a witness at the house, <em>me</em>," Frankie pointed out, "You can't do what was done to this woman without making some noise, and I've never been a heavy sleeper. There's also the fact that she was plenty bloody, but the stains on the carpeting didn't match the wounds on her body, clearly she had just been dumped there."</p>
  <p>"And the knife?" Murdock asked.</p>
  <p>"Murdoch was only half coherent at the time, I'm not above thinking that somebody drugged him, makes it easier to put the knife in his hands and get the blood on him," Frankie said.</p>
  <p>"<em>That's</em> why you wanted her here to explain," Hannibal realized as he looked at Murdoch, "Because she was the only one lucid in the house that night."</p>
  <p>"Well now wait a minute," Face interjected, "Something's not adding up here."</p>
  <p>"Only <em>something</em>?" Murdock asked.</p>
  <p>Face looked at Frankie and said to her, "If you were there, why didn't you tell what you knew to the police?"</p>
  <p>"I tried," Frankie told him, "I tried to stop them when they hauled Murdoch off, one of them beat me in the head and left me on the sidewalk while they took him away. They weren't interested in hearing <em>my</em> side of the story for some reason."</p>
  <p>But Hannibal knew that that wasn't the end of it, "You told his lawyer then, didn't you?"</p>
  <p>"Yeah, I went to that shyster and I told him what I knew," Frankie recalled, "And he said that it wasn't any good, that he couldn't use any of it at trial."</p>
  <p>"Why not?" Face asked, "He didn't believe you?"</p>
  <p>"Oh he believed me alright," Frankie nodded, "But he said he couldn't use me."</p>
  <p>Hannibal caught on and said, "There's something more here than you're telling us. Some reason <em>wh</em><em>y</em> a lawyer would completely toss aside a perfectly good witness that could help clear his client. What is it?"</p>
  <p>Frankie and Murdoch glanced at each other again, equally unsure if they should tell what it was. Finally Frankie faced the A-Team and explained, "The night that Murdoch was arrested and I was staying at his house for the night, he was 22 years old and I had just turned 17."</p>
  <p>"That'll do it," Face said as if they were just wrapping things up, "They might be able to clear him on the murder charge with her testimony but then they go after him with a statutory charge, and that's an even surer death sentence than a murder conviction."</p>
  <p>"That's what his shyster lawyer said," Frankie said, "Said that nobody would believe that nothing was going on between us."</p>
  <p>"And of course it wasn't," Hannibal said, half mockingly.</p>
  <p>"No it wasn't," Frankie told him, staring daggers at him, "And I don't care if you believe it or not."</p>
  <p>"Well what the hell? I'll believe it," Hannibal replied, "After the last couple of days we've had, I'll almost believe anything in fact."</p>
  <p>"You go to hell, pal," Frankie spat, "I've got no reason to lie to you, all I've ever done is tell people the truth and all it's ever gotten me is trouble, nobody wants to know what the truth is."</p>
  <p>"Well you're in luck," Murdock told them, "Because that just happens to be our specialty, so go on. What happened?"</p>
  <p>Frankie exhaled and some of the fight seemed to leave her, "Well anyway that's <em>why</em> his lawyer pushed for an insanity plea, he couldn't present the evidence to clear Murdoch of a murder and he had to do something to keep him from getting convicted. Neither of us wanted that, and I told that lizard that I was going to go to the prosecution and tell <em>him</em> what happened."</p>
  <p>"Did you?" Hannibal asked.</p>
  <p>"I tried," Frankie answered, "I cornered him on the courthouse steps but just as I started to talk to him, some madman comes out of nowhere and blasts him into Swiss cheese and takes off, leaving me standing there in awe with his blood splattered all over me."</p>
  <p>"Now that is one hell of a coincidence," Face noted.</p>
  <p>"My thoughts exactly, so once the body was hauled off, I repaid the defense attorney a visit, determined to get some answers out of him. You know how people are bound to say anything when their lives are in the balance and they know it? Well I had that lizard's neck in my hands and he was turning blue, and <em>still</em> he insisted he didn't have anything to do with the assassination, so what could I do? I took his word for it and let him go."</p>
  <p>"But that's not the end of it," Hannibal knew.</p>
  <p>"No," Frankie answered, "By the time they got a new prosecutor in and got him familiar with all the evidence presented and pushed for the insanity plea, almost a year had passed from the night he was arrested. Then they just shipped him off to Freemont."</p>
  <p>"And?" Hannibal asked.</p>
  <p>"And," Frankie told him, "It just seemed to me that the prosecution was too happy to accept the insanity plea, I thought they were supposed to fight those tooth and nail. Of course I later found out that prosecutors are usually only too happy to take insanity pleas, it's insanity <em>defenses</em> that they refuse."</p>
  <p>"Ah, and there's a difference?" Face asked.</p>
  <p>"Apparently," Frankie sighed, "Neither of us had any money that we could get another lawyer with a second opinion on the matter <em>or</em> an appeal. So, I decided to take matters into my own hands."</p>
  <p>"Which were?" Hannibal asked.</p>
  <p>"I decided to see how easy it would be to get <em>myself</em> committed to one of those crazy hospitals," Frankie said, "It seemed to me they ought to be more willing to take a less violent person than an accused murderer for the next batch in the cracker factory."</p>
  <p>"But you weren't committed until two months ago," Murdock recalled.</p>
  <p>"That's right," Frankie nodded, "And I had two years' worth of trying to get in there in the first place."</p>
  <p>"Two years?" Face repeated in disbelief, "What did you do?"</p>
  <p>"What <em>didn't</em> I do?" Frankie replied, "I did everything I could think of to convince people that I was crazy."</p>
  <p>"Like what for example?" Murdock asked.</p>
  <p>"<em>Everything</em>," Frankie said, "I did all the research I could, I went to the library, read every book they had on mental disease and criminal insanity."</p>
  <p>"You read <span>Sybil</span>?"</p>
  <p>"Sure I read <span>Sybil</span> and <span>Three Faces of Eve</span> and all of those," Frankie explained, "I exhausted <em>every</em> possibility to pass myself off as crazy. I did <em>everything</em>, nothing worked."</p>
  <p>Her voice cracked and disappeared at the last couple of words, it was obvious that it <em>had</em> been an exhausting ordeal for her, and largely for nothing.</p>
  <p>"You <em>finally</em> got committed," Hannibal noted.</p>
  <p>"Yeah, because I about set myself on fire," Frankie told him, "I spend months creating different personalities who speak different languages and all have different handwriting, I randomly chopped my hair off during art class, I take my clothes off in a public place and jump in the water fountain, I steal cars, I steal anything I can get my hands on, I even beat up my parents after we got in a small disagreement, and me screaming bloody Russian the whole time, and nobody thinks that I could be crazy until I start drinking gasoline and lighting matches. Ooh," she groaned as she recalled, "I was never so sick in my whole life as that night, but <em>that</em> was what finally did it, and for all the trouble I caused, all the laws I broke, it was my parents who had me committed, nothing ever went to court, nothing was ever taken before a judge or a jury, it's unbelievable!"</p>
  <p>"Your whole story is unbelievable," Face observed.</p>
  <p>Frankie turned back to Mad Dog and said to him, "I told you they wouldn't believe us."</p>
  <p>"Don't get ahead of us," Hannibal warned her, "What I don't get is <em>why</em> was Murdoch transferred to the V.A. at the same time you were committed to Freemont? And for that matter, <em>why</em> were <em>either</em> of you put in Freemont here? Don't they have mental hospitals where you come from?"</p>
  <p>"Asking the wrong person, his lawyer pushed for it, I don't know why," Frankie said, "And I also don't know why or how they moved him out, I had figured once I got in there, I could help him find a way out."</p>
  <p>"How long were you going to stay there?" Hannibal asked.</p>
  <p>"The staff got the jump on me," she admitted, "They'd keep me doped up or tied to that bed so I couldn't do anything. I guess they didn't want any repeats of when I went there to visit with Murdoch."</p>
  <p>"What <em>did</em> happen anyway?" Hannibal wanted to know.</p>
  <p>"I tried sneaking him out one night, the security guards found out," Frankie explained, "They put a stop to that <em>real</em> quick."</p>
  <p>"What about your parents?" Face asked, "Didn't you ever tell them what was going on?"</p>
  <p>"They wouldn't believe me," Frankie told him, "Even if they did, they wouldn't do anything to help Murdoch, they'd only hear how old he was and condemn him for that, just like his lawyer said everybody in the courtroom would. I <em>did</em> try telling them once, never got anywhere with that. I knew nobody was going to help us so I decided to look into the matter for myself."</p>
  <p>"And, anything further to report?" Hannibal asked.</p>
  <p>"Not much," Frankie confessed, "Pretty much it's just what I already told you, anything past that is beyond me."</p>
  <p>"Alright, so let's try thinking about this logically," Face said to the others, "The police conduct a shoddy investigation and don't even come up with the basic facts which say that the woman who was murdered, <em>was</em> murdered somewhere else and dumped at the house. Why would they do that?"</p>
  <p>"Because they're in somebody's pocket, that's why," Frankie told him.</p>
  <p>"Whose?" Face asked.</p>
  <p>Frankie became very quiet at his question, saying only, "They had to be, it's the only thing that makes sense."</p>
  <p>"Right now <em>nothing</em> makes sense," Face replied.</p>
  <p>"I'll second that," Murdock said, and addressing the others he added, "And you <em>know</em> how much it takes for me to admit to something like that."</p>
  <p>"So what do we do now, Hannibal?" Face asked.</p>
  <p>Frankie leaned towards Mad Dog and said to him, "I told you it was a waste of time, I told you they wouldn't help us."</p>
  <p>"Don't be too sure of that, Frankie," Hannibal told her, "No doubt it'll be an obstacle getting to the bottom of the whole thing, but I do believe it is possible."</p>
  <p>"Alright, how?" she asked.</p>
  <p>"That, I'm not sure of yet," he answered, "We'll start to work on it in the morning, in the meantime it's late and I'm sure everybody's tired and just wants to get some rest."</p>
  <p>Frankie laughed and said, "Not me, two months I've been getting enough rest to kill a hippopotamus, all those pills and injections, damn sedatives and barbiturates and tranquilizers."</p>
  <p>"Exactly what did you <em>do</em> to those people?" Face asked.</p>
  <p>"You name it," Frankie said, "Once I was actually in that place I figured there's no nut like a violent nut, and ooh I got them good, the staff at Freemont <em>definitely</em> thinks I'm crazy."</p>
  <p>"Of that I have no doubt," Hannibal told her, "However the question remains <em>why </em>once you got transferred in, your boyfriend got shipped over to Los Angeles's V.A., now Murdock has a very interesting theory about that. You insist that Murdoch couldn't have been the one to kill the woman found in his home, alright, suppose whoever did, was worried that somebody might believe his story, so they ordered the lobotomy to silence him permanently?"</p>
  <p>"It is <em>definitely</em> possible, Mr. Smith," Frankie said, "Unfortunately I don't know anything that we can do about it. Whoever did it is going to know Frankie's missing and then they're going to find out I'm missing, and the manhunt's going to start again."</p>
  <p>"Well, there's no way they could find you here," Hannibal told them, "Now for tonight I suggest we don't worry about it, tomorrow we'll get a fresh start and look into the matter and see what we can come up with. In the meantime tonight there's the matter of what to do with everyone, unfortunately we only have four bedrooms."</p>
  <p>"And you don't trust us to stay down here on the couch," Frankie said knowingly.</p>
  <p>"I won't say that I don't trust you," Hannibal said.</p>
  <p>"But you don't trust us," Murdoch finished for him.</p>
  <p>"Alright, here's what we're going to do," Hannibal announced, "Face, you and Mad Dog are going to sleep in your room, and Murdock, you and Frankie can bunk together."</p>
  <p>Murdock growled approvingly and said, "A pleasure."</p>
  <p>"Murdoch, what did we get ourselves into?" Frankie groaned.</p>
  <hr/>
  <p>"I still don't see why I can't be with Murdoch tonight," Frankie said as she paced around Murdock's room.</p>
  <p>"Hannibal just thinks that we'd all be safer if one of us was with each one of you," Murdock explained as he lined down the center of his bed with bunched up blankets.</p>
  <p>"So why did I have to get stuck with <em>you</em>?" Frankie asked.</p>
  <p>"Well I think it's more for Face's own good," Murdock explained, "See he's a real…he has a…he's a pig, alright? He gets within 10 feet of a woman and he loses his head."</p>
  <p>"He tries anything with me, he'll lose more than that," Frankie told him.</p>
  <p>"Na, Face don't work like that," he replied, "He's a conman, he can charm anybody into anything, and that includes women."</p>
  <p>"Not me," Frankie insisted, "I haven't gone through everything I have for the last two years to toss M.D. over now."</p>
  <p>Murdock went up to her and asked her, "Can I ask you a question? Exactly <em>what</em> was it about this guy that you fell for him?"</p>
  <p>"You wouldn't get it," Frankie sneered as she walked away from him.</p>
  <p>"Never underestimate crazy people," Murdock told her, "We understand more than people are willing to give us credit for."</p>
  <p>Frankie turned and looked back to him and said, "I'll just bet when you were my age you had a new girl on your arm every week and <em>every</em> one of them looking like a centerfold in the making. You look at me, I've never been able to get anywhere on my looks, which is how it ought to be, but that, mixed with my own proneness towards eccentric behavior, has left me alone for most of my teenaged years. Murdoch's the first guy who ever liked me, and he did something for me that nobody else would ever do, or <em>could</em> ever do."</p>
  <p>"What's that?" Murdock asked.</p>
  <p>"He made me feel smart," Frankie explained, "When you don't have your looks to fall back on you have to resort to your brains, and he was the first person in my whole life who didn't act or treat me like I was an idiot. I can't tell you how high of an honor that is, just as well because you'd never understand it."</p>
  <p>"Well now," Murdock put his hand up to get her attention, "I wouldn't quite say that…you know when you get locked up in the mental hospital people don't tend to think you're too bright then either. They think you just sit around all day eating cardboard or yelling at the mailbox, and when you're a pilot like me, when you're the best pilot there is who can fly anything, even things that weren't meant to fly, and everybody acts like the only thing you're good for is eating grapes off the wallpaper, that doesn't do much for your pride either."</p>
  <p>Frankie looked at him and asked, "<em>How</em> long have you been locked up?"</p>
  <p>"Ten years," he answered.</p>
  <p>"How have you not killed somebody yet?" Frankie asked, "Or yourself?"</p>
  <p>Murdock pointed to the door and said, "I'm out on leave all the time, that helps, those guys you met downstairs, they know I'm smart, they just think I'm nuts, which I am, but crazy doesn't mean stupid."</p>
  <p>"It doesn't mean insane either," Frankie told him, "I've said it for years, I told everybody, <em>I</em> might be crazy, but I'm <em>not</em> insane."</p>
  <p>"So why'd you want people to think that you were?" Murdock asked.</p>
  <p>"Because nobody would listen to me, nobody was interested in the truth so I had to try another approach," Frankie said, "I had to find a way to make people listen and nothing worked. The defense lawyer didn't care about the truth, the cops didn't care about the truth, the prosecution got blown away before I could tell him the truth."</p>
  <p>"Did you try the judge?" Murdock asked.</p>
  <p>"You're not listening to me, I tried <em>everything</em>, I told <em>everybody</em>, nobody cared."</p>
  <p>Murdock whistled and said, "Whoever this guy is, he must have deep pockets to have everybody in the justice department in them."</p>
  <p>"Yeah," Frankie tiredly replied as she squeezed her eyes shut and balled up one hand and rested it against one closed eye. Murdock didn't miss the tear trailing down her cheek, he went over to her and put an arm around her supportively, that was the one thing that sent her over the edge. Frankie collapsed against him sobbing; the pilot had a good idea that this was the first time since M.D. had been arrested that she'd let <em>these</em> emotions boil over instead of the relentless anger and hatred that it seemed she expressed towards everyone. He held her and patted her back comfortingly and let her carry on for a little while to finally get it out, then he spoke softly to her and said, "Hey, take it easy, Frankie, we're going to find out how to get to the bottom of this, you'll see."</p>
  <p>"You really think so?" she asked as she pulled away from him.</p>
  <p>"We always do," Murdock answered, "Ain't any problem come up yet we couldn't find a solution for, and believe me we've had some biggies."</p>
  <p>"But never anything like this," Frankie said.</p>
  <p>"No, that's true, but it's not the first time we've ever unraveled and exposed a murder either," Murdock explained, "We always find a way." He saw that she was shaking, almost convulsing and he asked her, "You cold?"</p>
  <p>A small shiver gave him the answer, though Frankie insisted as she turned away from him, "I'll survive."</p>
  <p>Murdock picked up one of the bunched up blankets from the bed's makeshift partition and draped it around her.</p>
  <p>"Thanks," she sheepishly said.</p>
  <p>Murdock kissed her on the forehead and said, "Come on, let's go to bed, we'll figure this whole thing out in the morning."</p>
  <p>He got her tucked in on one side and went around to the other side and crawled in under the covers. After a few minutes of trying to keep a relative distance, he decided that being in a mental asylum, she'd had enough distance to last her a lifetime, so he moved over towards her side and put his arms around her. Two years without anybody she could trust, anyone she could talk to, and even worse, two months with absolutely <em>no</em> contact with the man she loved. He remembered what Mad Dog had said about her sneaking into Freemont after visiting hours to spend the night, a conjugal visit wasn't much but it was still better than nothing. And likewise, a little platonic contact was also better than nothing.</p>
  <p>That was something that in all his years as a mental patient and an observer of human behavior in connection to their psychological profiles, he found that many people often overlooked. Too many people focused on if it was appropriate to get close to other people, physically close, all those questions about what ifs and what was acceptable. Well, he knew too well from personal experience and observation that people who were suffering didn't give a damn about what was ethical or not, they needed to know they weren't alone, they needed to feel another person come in contact with them; that was one reason why he was what others might describe as overly affectionate with most people he came in contact with, as a patient, he didn't have any restrictions on who he could and couldn't kiss or embrace, and as a human he didn't care anyway. Such as was the case here, he knew <em>why</em> Hannibal stuck the two of them together; Face was just liable to forget his position and to forget that Frankie was 'taken', but Murdock could comfort a woman without losing his head over her. And as reinforcement to that fact, he remembered that for all he knew, this woman could be his family, and he intended to treat her as such; that above all else cemented the decision. And Frankie didn't seem to have any objections to it either, at least not for the time being. Murdock felt his eyelids closing and he tucked the crown of Frankie's head under his chin and slowly felt both of them nod off to sleep.</p>
  <p>Murdock woke up a short while later when he felt somebody trying to climb over him and saw that Frankie was trying to wrestle her way out from under the tangle of covers.</p>
  <p>"What's the matter?" he asked as he pulled back the bedspread to let her out.</p>
  <p>"I can't sleep," she said, "I'm going to go downstairs and get something to eat."</p>
  <hr/>
  <p>Hannibal followed the clattering noises coming from the kitchen downstairs as he made his way down the stairs in the dark. Somebody was up, he didn't know who, but he was certain that one of the prisoners had gotten out of their cells. He got his confirmation when he stood in the doorway to the lighted kitchen and saw Frankie had taken about half of the food out of the refrigerator and seemed to be making her way through a piece of fried chicken, a bologna sandwich, a jar of pickles, a large Polish sausage impaled on a fork, and a bowl of strawberry Jell-o.</p>
  <p>"Hungry or suicidal?" he asked.</p>
  <p>Frankie bit off another piece of the sausage and asked him, "You ever eat hospital food, Mr. Smith?"</p>
  <p>"A few times," he answered.</p>
  <p>"Yeah well mental hospital food is far worse, let me tell you that," Frankie said as she downed a swig of Coca-Cola, "Mr. Smith, I need to talk to someone about something."</p>
  <p>Hannibal gave the food on the table another glance and asked, "You're not pregnant, are you?"</p>
  <p>"Mr. Smith, I've got a problem and I need to talk to someone about it," Frankie said, her tone underlining the seriousness of the matter.</p>
  <p>Hannibal could tell it was worse than that. "Alright, so tell me kid, what is it?"</p>
  <p>Frankie looked at him and said, "I know who killed that woman, but I can't prove it. I never told anybody the truth about that one because I know they'd never listen, I didn't know it at first but after a few months, it just seemed to all fall into place."</p>
  <p>Hannibal was taken aback by this revelation. "Who is it?"</p>
  <p>"His name is Richard Masterson, he's a friend of my dad's," Frankie said.</p>
</div>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div>
  <p>"Alright, you knew that this third degree was coming," Hannibal said as he pulled out one of the chairs at the table," Sit down and explain this to me again, nice and slow."</p>
  <p>Frankie sat down in the chair across from him and said, "I never liked Masterson, and they always knew it, but they never believed me when I said why. I first met the man when I was seven years old, my parents were having a party at the house to celebrate my father kicking off his new business, and there <em>he</em> was. When everybody was sitting down and yapping their heads off, he tried to get me to sit on his lap, I ran away, my mother grabbed me, and took me back, and I still ran away from him. Funny how even back then I knew, no matter how many times she took me back to and told me to stay still, I wouldn't stay anywhere near him. How I knew then, I don't know."</p>
  <p>Hannibal's brow knitted together as he tried reading through the gaps in the lines she was leaving and he asked her, "You mean he…"</p>
  <p>Frankie shook her head, "No, not then anyway…you see, he would come by the house and visit with my father every so often, during which time I tried disappearing up to my room and just staying out of sight, and staying quiet. Seems that I spent most of my life trying to hide from people, him especially. Mom and Dad always wanted to know why I didn't like him, you can't explain it at that age, you just <em>know</em> that you don't. Well, I found out why when I got older. Around the time I was 13, both my parents were working, so I was alone in the afternoon and also when they were out on the weekends, and that always coincided so nicely whenever Masterson would come to the house, his little unexpected visits." She laughed bitterly and said, "You know in school they're always telling kids about strangers, you know: don't take candy, don't take presents, don't get in their cars, don't talk to them, it's very funny because <em>nobody</em> ever says what to do about people you <em>know</em>. And they're the real problem, Mr. Smith, never strangers off the street, that's too easy, predators are close to their victims because they can establish their own credibility and ruin their prey's that way."</p>
  <p>Hannibal felt his stomach starting to turn and an acid taste in the back of his throat as he asked, "What happened?"</p>
  <p>"The first time he came to the house when I was alone, he managed to force his way through the door, but fate intervened and my mother came home early. You never saw anybody change so quick, suddenly he was Mr. Conscientious and concerned that I was all alone in the middle of the day, just <em>so</em> happened to be coming to see my father, completely forgot that he was out of town for the weekend, of course she bought it. After that I learned to leave the door locked whenever he tried dropping by, it didn't do any good to pretend I wasn't home, so I'd talk down to him from one of the upstairs windows. And ooh was he mad that I was able to figure that out. I tried telling them what was going on, but they wouldn't listen, they wouldn't believe me…nothing new there."</p>
  <p>"How long did that keep up for?" Hannibal asked.</p>
  <p>"Years!" Frankie told him, "He <em>never</em> left me alone, so I guess I was relieved when I finally met Murdoch, I figured if I had a boyfriend around, that Masterson would take a hint and leave me alone. No such luck, and unfortunately Murdoch didn't prove to be much protection, I don't think he could beat somebody up if his life depended on it."</p>
  <p>Hannibal felt some of the jigsaw pieces falling into place, "That's why you always went back to Bakersfield with him, instead of him coming to see you."</p>
  <p>Frankie nodded, "I figured if I got out of town that Masterson would never find out, would never follow me…apparently I was wrong."</p>
  <p>"And you think <em>he</em> killed that woman?" Hannibal asked.</p>
  <p>"Yes, think about it, Murdoch gets arrested for murder, he gets put away, because of our age differences I can't tell the police that he's innocent without incriminating him on an imaginary crime. So Mad Dog goes away for life, and where does that leave me? Back home in Cranston all alone when dear old daddy's business partner decides to come and call again. So I guess you could say I was relieved when I finally got committed, he couldn't very well explain what he'd be doing in a mental hospital to see me, now could he? Especially since I was bused to one so far away from my own hometown as you pointed out."</p>
  <p>"Alright, so far it sounds plausible," Hannibal told her, "And I'm <em>not</em> saying that I don't believe you, but there is <em>one</em> thing that's not adding up here…why would Masterson spend so many years trying to get at you instead of just going after some other poor defenseless girl, who didn't have as many brains as you did?"</p>
  <p>"That's the thing, Mr. Smith, I don't know that he didn't," Frankie answered, "For all I know every night after he failed to get into my home he probably went and snatched up some other teenaged girl and did with her what he wanted to do with me. But if he did, those girls either aren't going to know who he is, be able to recognize him, or have anybody in their corner who will believe them either, it's how men like Masterson work."</p>
  <p>"I know, I know," Hannibal said, "But then why do this? Why resort to murdering some poor woman just to set your boyfriend up?"</p>
  <p>"Why would Murdoch stab some random stranger to death in his living room?" Frankie replied, "That makes even less sense, it's not impossible that Masterson <em>knew</em> the woman, that he had some grudge against her as well that he thought killing her and setting Murdoch up to take the rap for it would take care of two problems at once."</p>
  <p>"Good point," Hannibal agreed.</p>
  <p>"Mr. Smith, I'm sure that your crazy pilot could've told you this already, but when I was doing research for my own crazy act, I found out something in all those headshrinker books."</p>
  <p>"What's that?" he wanted to know.</p>
  <p>"There are personal and impersonal methods of killing people," Frankie told him, "That's something that the general public isn't very aware of, they just think that the world is full of psycho killers who will stab somebody a hundred times, or blow them full of holes, but it turns out that most of those are actually committed by somebody very close to the victim, and that's <em>why</em> they excessively attack them. It's a very personal matter, it's not like some random mugging or assault, if that were the case, one or two jabs would suffice, but they're angry at these people and that is why they have to rip the knife out and stick it back into them over and over and over again, they're taking their frustrations <em>on</em> this person <em>out</em> on them."</p>
  <p>Hannibal nodded, "Speaking as somebody who served in two wars and saw my own share of death and murder, I know that you're telling the truth there."</p>
  <p>"Well that's something that we never knew, they don't tell us about that on the news or in the papers," Frankie said, "As a kid you don't really think anything about it, a killer's a killer, a psycho is a psycho, then you get older, do your research and it's a whole other ballgame."</p>
  <p>Hannibal nodded again and said, "But how do you <em>know</em> that Masterson is the one responsible?"</p>
  <p>"Because Murdoch on his own merit couldn't make an enemy in the world, he is a <em>pushover</em>, Mr. Smith, he doesn't have a mean bone in his body. And I <em>know</em> that he didn't kill that woman."</p>
  <p>"Alright, now let's work on that theory," Hannibal said, "You said he was drugged, so the question is <em>how</em> was he drugged? You two were at his home, what access would Masterson have to slip him something?"</p>
  <p>"That's one thing I've wracked my brain on for a good part of the last two years," Frankie answered, "We went out to a pizzeria for dinner that night, that's one thing we can't decide on, he likes pepperoni, I like olives and peppers, and right after we <em>got</em> it, I looked around, and I about hit the ceiling. I told Mad Dog, 'Masterson is here', he looks around, can't see anybody, thinks I'm just being paranoid. But it <em>had</em> to be him, somehow he managed to put something in his side of the pizza before it was brought to our table."</p>
  <p>Hannibal raised a finger to get her attention and said, "That's one area I <em>do</em> have a little experience in, and if you know what you're doing it <em>can</em> be relatively easy…but why only drug him, not you?"</p>
  <p>Frankie nodded impatiently, "I thought about that too, but after a while it made sense, that woman was not killed in M.D.'s living room, she was just dumped there, so I wouldn't have to be drugged, because there wouldn't have been any screaming. Now, I don't know <em>how</em> M.D. got down there to find the woman, perhaps Masterson had a part in that too, maybe he dragged him out of the bed, down the stairs, put the knife in his hands, smeared the blood on him, and then got out of there, but he <em>had</em> to have been in the house that night, and he had to have been the one who called the police. Maybe he figured if I was lucid, that I'd think Murdoch did it, that I'd run out of there screaming, that I'd accuse him of killing the woman…surprise was on him, I knew better than that."</p>
  <p>"Were they able to identify the woman?" Hannibal asked.</p>
  <p>"Yeah, her name was Alice Arden, she lived a few blocks down from Murdoch's house, he knew her in passing, not enough to really say he <em>knew</em> her. So he would have no motive for killing her."</p>
  <p>"But of course no establishment can be made to connect this victim and your father's business partner," Hannibal said, "And by the time the story breaks, Masterson is conveniently back in Cranston asleep in his own bed and completely oblivious to the story until the headlines the next morning, of course."</p>
  <p>"Of course," Frankie rubbed one eye and yawned, and said, "You know it's a very ironic thing, my whole life there's only <em>one</em> person who believes me, who I feel safe around, and he's taken away from me just like that. Then I'm on my own."</p>
  <p>Hannibal looked at her and he felt his stomach turning again, but not for the same reason as before. He got up from the table and told her, "Come on."</p>
  <p>Frankie got up and asked, "Where're we going?"</p>
  <p>"Never mind, just come on," he said as he led her out to the hall and up the stairs.</p>
  <p>"Wait here," he whispered as he went over to Face's room and opened the door. There were a few low mumbles and a minute later Hannibal came back dragging Face out of his own room, and he told Frankie, "Change of plans, you take that room, Face and Murdock will room for the night."</p>
  <p>"Hannibal, what's going on?" Face asked as Hannibal dragged him across the hall to Murdock's room.</p>
  <p>Murdock hadn't gone back to bed yet and looked up when the door opened and he asked Hannibal, "What's up, Colonel?"</p>
  <p>"Change of plans, Murdock, Face is going to be bunking with you tonight, that alright with you?"</p>
  <p>"Sure, that's always fine with me," Murdock said as he pulled back the covers.</p>
  <p>"Hannibal, what is going on?" Face demanded to know, "Why was I kicked out of my <em>own</em> room for the night?"</p>
  <p>"Because," Hannibal answered as he gave Face a little shove towards the bed, "I decided that those two kids have already been punished enough for something they didn't do, no sense in us adding to it anymore than is necessary."</p>
  <p>"The two of them in there alone, you think that's a good idea?" Face asked as he reluctantly got in bed with Murdock.</p>
  <p>"What're they going to do, lieutenant, fly out the window? That's nearly a 30 foot drop and it's straight down into the rock garden," Hannibal told him. He tucked Face in tightly to emphasize what he was too tired to say and added, "Get some sleep, we've got a lot of work to do tomorrow."</p>
  <p>"I hate it when he says that," Face told Murdock once Hannibal left the room.</p>
  <p>Hannibal closed the door behind him and started back for his own room, but stopped when he heard sounds coming from Face's room. He quietly padded over and pressed his ear against the door and heard soft, muffled crying coming from inside. He closed his eyes for a second, feeling sick for both of those kids, and quietly whispered, "Welcome home, you two," then turned and headed back to his own room for the night.</p>
  <hr/>
  <p>Murdock was among the first ones up the next morning and had taken it upon himself to cook breakfast for the others. By the time Hannibal and B.A. got down, they could already smell something burning in the waffle iron. They also saw that Frankie was already up, showered, and changed out of her hospital pajamas into a set of men's blue jeans and a blue plaid shirt over a black T-shirt.</p>
  <p>"You're up early," Hannibal noted. He would've thought after last night that Frankie and Mad Dog would be in bed until noon.</p>
  <p>"I'm hungry," she answered, "Besides, M.D. got up around 5 o' clock and came down here to sleep on the couch."</p>
  <p>Hannibal doubled back to the living room entryway and saw that she was right, then he returned to the kitchen and asked her, "What's up with that?"</p>
  <p>"Nightmares," Frankie told him, "Don't ask me why, but whenever Murdoch has nightmares he always picks the lowest point in the house to try sleeping and since you don't have a basement, that means the living room."</p>
  <p>"I see," Hannibal said dismissively.</p>
  <p>They heard Face's voice bellowing and echoing as it traveled down the stairs before he did. He entered the kitchen and said, "Murdock have you been in my closet again? I'm missing my…" he stopped when he saw Frankie and went over to the table and looked down at her.</p>
  <p>"Yes?" Frankie asked as she tilted her head back to see him.</p>
  <p>"You're wearing my shirt and my jeans," he told her.</p>
  <p>Frankie stood up and said, "Oh yeah? Well now you know how they should look."</p>
  <p>"Come on, Facey, have a heart," Murdock said as he grabbed a new waffle out of the iron, "You can't expect her to go running around in her nightclothes, that's indecent."</p>
  <p>"Yeah," Frankie added haughtily with a sharp nod of her head.</p>
  <p>Face rolled his eyes back and looked to the ceiling with a 'why me?' expression. Already he had the sinking feeling that he couldn't win for losing where these people were concerned.</p>
  <p>"So where's Mad Dog?" he asked.</p>
  <p>"In the living room," the others answered.</p>
  <p>"Come on, let's go wake Sleeping Beauty up," Hannibal said.</p>
  <p>They all went into the living room and found M.D. on the couch tossing and turning and groaning in his sleep. Before anybody could touch him, his eyes flew open and he screamed, fell on the floor and rambled incoherently as he latched onto the first thing he could get his hands on, which consequently turned out to be B.A.'s leg.</p>
  <p>"Hey man, get this fool off of me!" B.A. was surprised by the sudden vise grip the young man had on his thigh.</p>
  <p>Murdock and Frankie got down on the floor beside him and pried Mad Dog's arms off of B.A.'s leg and the three of them fell on the floor like a set of bowling pins.</p>
  <p>"Strike," Face commented.</p>
  <p>By now, M.D. was awake and just as confused as to what was going on as the others were, but for different reasons.</p>
  <p>"What happened?" he asked.</p>
  <p>Murdock dramatically fell back against the floor in shock by the question. Frankie cautiously grabbed his arm and explained, "You had a nightmare, Murdoch."</p>
  <p>"Man!" B.A. exclaimed as he stepped away from them, "Sucker got a hard grip, Hannibal."</p>
  <p>"And no easy task either, considering the redwood he was hugging," Murdock said.</p>
  <p>B.A. growled and took a step towards him and Murdock sprang to his feet and jumped back.</p>
  <p>"Alright, everybody get up," Hannibal said, "Murdock, get a spare change of clothes that Mad Dog can wear for the day, and then bring him back down here."</p>
  <hr/>
  <p>"Alright, so since everybody's now up and accounted for, Hannibal," Face said 20 minutes later when Murdock and M.D. came back down the stairs, "What's the plan for the day?"</p>
  <p>"We're going to pay a visit out to Bakersfield and find out what the local word is about Miss Arden's murder, and then we're going to pay a visit out to Cranston and check on this Mr. Masterson."</p>
  <p>"Who?" Face asked.</p>
  <p>"Oh that's right, you weren't down here last night," Frankie said.</p>
  <p>"No matter," Hannibal told them, "I'll explain it on the way."</p>
  <p>"Hannibal, that hardly gives me any time to work on a…" Face started to say, but was abruptly cut off.</p>
  <p>"Not <em>you</em>, Face, B.A. and I are going to go," Hannibal said, "If Masterson finds out somebody's onto him and tries to send some friends along to muscle their way in on us, I think it's only fair we have some muscle to lean back with, instead of a little flab."</p>
  <p>"Not that again!" Face exploded, "I told you before, Hannibal I am not <em>flabby</em>!"</p>
  <p>Hannibal chuckled at Face's outburst, but it was short lived when he was interrupted by his captain.</p>
  <p>"Exactly what're we supposed to do in the meantime while we wait for you two to get back, Colonel?" Murdock asked.</p>
  <p>"You and Face are going to stay here and make sure that Frankie and Mad Dog stay out of sight," Hannibal said, "Also, Murdock, since you are our psychological expert, I want you to work with them and see if you can get anymore answers out of them about what's going on, than they were willing to share with us last night. Maybe you can hit on a repressed memory and strike gold on it. I get the impression that we're going to be going up against a very smart and powerful man and if that's the case, we're going to need everything we can get to hit him with."</p>
  <p>Murdock saluted proudly and said, "I shall do what I can do, Colonel."</p>
  <p>"Oh great," Face said sarcastically, "You and B.A. go off on a road trip while I'm stuck here babysitting three lunatics!"</p>
  <p>"No, no, no Facey, not lunatics," Murdock said, "Consider the word, 'luna', meaning moon, my kind doesn't originate from the moon, we're more along the line of natives from the planet Clarion."</p>
  <p>Face turned back to the colonel and started to growl like B.A. when he was frustrated, "Hannibal!"</p>
  <p>"Look on the bright side, Face," Hannibal said, "You won't have to try feeding them their spinach at dinner," and he chuckled at Face's obvious frustration.</p>
</div>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>